Lively Oral Argument in Home Concrete Leaves Outcome in Doubt

The Supreme Court heard oral argument in the Home Concrete case on January 17, with the Justices vigourously questioning both sides on both the statutory and administrative deference issues.  The Court will issue its decision by the end of June.  The following is a recap of the argument that is also published at SCOTUSblog.  A full transcript of the oral argument can be found here.

Home Concrete involves the scope of the extended six-year statute of limitations applicable when a taxpayer “omits from gross income an amount properly includible therein.”  The case presents two main issues:  (1) whether that statutory language covers overstatements of tax basis, even though the Supreme Court construed the same phrase in a predecessor statute not to do so; and, (2) if the Court does not accept the government’s statutory argument, whether it must defer to a recent Treasury regulation that adopts the government’s proffered interpretation.  The argument was lively, with all Justices save Justice Thomas asking questions at some point.  It was also somewhat disjointed, as the discussion jumped from topic to topic without any obvious agreement among the Justices concerning which issue would be the ground for resolving the case.

Arguing on behalf of the United States, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart began by making a determined effort to persuade the Court that it should prevail on a standard statutory analysis without the need to resort to Chevron deference.  In response to questions from the Chief Justice and Justice Scalia suggesting that the Court’s decision in The Colony, Inc. v. Commissioner derails that argument from the start, Stewart argued that Colony did not purport to give a definitive definition of the “omits from gross income” language wherever it appears in the Code.  Rather, it just interpreted the language for the 1939 Code, and the 1954 Code should be read differently because of the additional subsections that were added.

Several Justices (the Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Sotomayor) expressed skepticism that Congress would have used such an obscure mechanism to change the interpretation of the “omits from gross income” phrase.  Stewart responded that he would agree if Colony had been on the books when the 1954 Code was enacted.  But in fact Colony was not decided until 1958, and Congress was acting against the backdrop of the existing circuit conflict on the meaning of the 1939 Code.  Justices Kennedy and Scalia immediately questioned that response, stating that it is “very strange” to say that the same language would have a different meaning depending upon when Colony was decided.  Justice Scalia then elaborated on his skepticism over the government’s attempts to prevail on the statute alone, stating that “we’re not writing on a blank slate here.”  “I think Colony may well have been wrong, but there it is.  It’s the law.  And it said that that language meant a certain thing.”

At that point, Justice Kagan sought to rescue Stewart by interjecting that the government has two arguments and the second one – that Treasury had the power to reinterpret the statute in regulations – was independent of Colony’s interpretation of the statutory language.  Although Stewart first tried to steer the Court back to the statute, Justice Kagan persisted, and the Chief Justice then entered the fray to question the linchpin of the government’s deference argument – namely, that Colony had found the statute to be “ambiguous.”  The Chief Justice pointed out that Justice Harlan, in using that word in 1958, “was writing very much in a pre-Chevron world” and likely was using the word not as “a term of art,” but rather in an attempt to be gracious to the lawyers and courts that had taken the opposite position.  Justice Ginsburg, however, pointed out that the Court had characterized the new subsection in the 1954 Code as “unambiguous” and therefore should be taken at its word that the 1939 Code was ambiguous.

Another line of questioning explored the extent to which there was ever a well-entrenched view that Colony controlled the meaning of the 1954 Code.  Stewart rejected the taxpayer’s position that everyone understood Colony as controlling prior to the Son-of-BOSS litigation, stating that there was a “surprising dearth of law” on the point, but the only arguably relevant case was a 1968 Fifth Circuit decision that suggested that Colony was not controlling.  The taxpayer and the Fifth Circuit dispute that reading of the case.  (No one observed that the likely reason there was no case law on this issue was because the IRS accepted Colony as controlling and therefore never attempted to invoke the six-year statute for overstatements of basis.)  Justice Breyer asked about a 2000 IRS guidance document that appeared to adopt the taxpayer’s view of Colony, but government counsel dismissed it as merely the view of a single District Counsel.  That prompted the Chief Justice to ask acerbically “at what level of the IRS bureaucracy can you feel comfortable that the advice you are getting is correct?”

When Gregory Garre took the podium on behalf of the taxpayer, Justice Kagan asked why Congress had added the new subsection addressing a trade or business.  Garre argued that it was designed to resolve the Colony issue favorably to the taxpayer, noting that there was nothing problematic about the fact that the new subsection addressed the specific problem of cost of goods sold instead of explicitly sweeping more broadly.  That answer triggered a more extensive discussion of why Congress acted as it did and whether it was drawing a distinction between sales of goods and services (addressed in the new subsection) and sales of real estate (at issue in Colony).

The key administrative law precedent at issue on the deference argument is National Cable & Telecommunications. Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Services, in which the Court accorded deference to a regulation that overturned existing court of appeals precedent.  The Court did not show any interest in backing away from Brand X, but it did suggest that it might read the case somewhat more narrowly than the government would like.  In Brand X, Justice Stevens wrote a short concurring opinion stating that the holding would not apply to a Supreme Court opinion because at that point no ambiguity would be left.  At the beginning of the argument, Justice Scalia echoed that view when he objected to Stewart’s reliance on the statement in Colony that the statute was “not unambiguous” by observing:  “Yes, but once we resolve an ambiguity in the statute, that’s the law and the agency cannot issue a regulation that changes the law just because going in the language was ambiguous.”  The Chief Justice returned to this point at the argument’s close.  He asked the only questions during the government’s rebuttal argument, seeking to confirm that the Court has never applied Brand X to one of its own decisions – that is, that “we’ve never said an agency can change what we’ve said the law means.”

The more open-ended issue concerning the scope of Brand X is what exactly was meant in that case by the statement that the judicial construction can trump a later regulation “only if the prior court decision holds that its construction follows from the unambiguous terms of the statute and thus leaves no room for agency discretion.”  The Court’s exploration of this point began with a lighthearted comment by Justice Scalia that the question in the case boils down to whether indeed Colony meant “ambiguous” when it used that term.  Justice Alito followed up, however, pointing out that every statutory interpretation question in the Supreme Court “involve[s] some degree of ambiguity . . ., [s]o what degree of ambiguity is Brand X referring to?”

Garre’s response to this question was to go back to the original Chevron decision, which “looks to whether Congress has addressed the specific question presented.”  Under that approach, Colony should be regarded as having found the degree of clarity necessary to insulate it from being overturned by regulation, because the Court concluded that Congress had addressed this specific question.  Justice Kagan, later seconded by Justice Ginsburg, questioned that approach, commenting that the relevant question is “how clearly did Congress speak to that specific situation?”  Because the Colony Court stated that the text was ambiguous and had to do a lot of “tap dancing” through the legislative history to resolve the case, she stated that Colony must be read as indicating “a lot of ambiguity.”  Justice Breyer then jumped in to express agreement with the taxpayer’s argument that the Colony Court’s resort to legislative history was just a standard mode of statutory construction that did not require treating that case as finding an ambiguity under Brand X.  Instead, Justice Breyer stated, “[t]here are many different kinds of ambiguity and the question is, is this of the kind where the agency later would come and use its expertise”?

The argument devoted relatively little attention to the retroactivity question.  The Chief Justice observed that, in light of Brand X, a taxpayer could never feel confident about a tax precedent because the IRS can change the rule and apply it retroactively.  This observation, however, did not obviously elicit much concern from the other Justices, with the notable exception of Justice Breyer who had stated early on that it was “unfair” for the IRS to promulgate “a regulation which tries to reach back and capture people who filed their return nine years before.”  Later, Justice Breyer acknowledged that merely tagging the retroactivity as unfair “is not enough” and asked Garre an incredibly long question designed to explore possible justifications for avoiding the retroactive application of the regulations even if the Court were to defer to them on a prospective basis.  These ideas, however, did not appear to gain any traction with the other Justices.

Predicting the outcome on the basis of this oral argument is dicey.  Justice Kagan appeared sympathetic to the government’s position, while Justice Breyer was very troubled by the unfairness of it.  Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor seemed to tilt towards the government.  But most of the Justices expressed enough difficulty with both sides that their votes cannot reasonably be forecast.  Overall, however, it did appear that the Court is more likely heading towards a relatively narrow decision than towards one that would break new ground in administrative law.  The Court’s approach to Colony will likely be critical.  If the Court treats Colony as precedential with respect to the 1954 Code, as it was generally regarded for fifty years, then it would not be difficult to rule for the taxpayer.  Brand X might be distinguished because Colony is a Supreme Court decision, or perhaps on the ground that the case should not be treated as finding an “ambiguity” in Chevron terms.  Conversely, if the Court views Colony as inapplicable to the 1954 Code, then, notwithstanding Justice Scalia’s observation to the contrary, the Court will essentially be writing on a blank slate.  If so, Brand X would likely lead to a ruling for the government.

Home Concrete Argument Preview

The long journey of the Intermountain cases toward a definitive resolution enters its final phase on Tuesday morning when the Supreme Court hears oral argument in the Home Concrete case.  (The final brief, the government’s reply brief, was filed last week.)  Each side will have 30 minutes for its argument, with the government going first and having the opportunity for rebuttal (using whatever portion of the 30 minutes that remains after its opening argument).  Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart (the Deputy SG in charge of tax cases) will argue for the government.  Gregory Garre, who served as Solicitor General during the last few months of the Bush administration in 2008-09, will argue for the taxpayer.  Both counsel have many Supreme Court arguments under their belts.

Regular readers of the blog know that we have covered these issues extensively since the Tax Court issued its decision in Intermountain.  The following is a preview of the argument that summarizes the issues for those who have not been following it so closely (or perhaps have gotten tired reading about it and want a refresher course).  A shorter version of this argument preview appears at SCOTUSblog.

We will return later in the week with a report on the argument.

Introduction

Depending on how the Court resolves a threshold statutory construction issue, Home Concrete could yield a decision of broad importance or one of interest only to tax lawyers.  The ultimate issue concerns the scope of an extended statute of limitations applicable only to tax cases.  The first possible ground for decision is purely a matter of interpreting the language of the tax statutes.  But the government faces significant hurdles on that ground, notably the Court’s 1958 decision in The Colony, Inc. v. Commissioner, which interpreted the same words in a predecessor statute in the 1939 Code in accordance with the taxpayer’s position.  If the Court rejects the government’s position that the statutory language alone is dispositive, the case will move to the second issue presented – whether the Court must adopt the government’s statutory construction because Chevron requires it to defer to recently promulgated Treasury regulations.  A decision on that issue could be a significant administrative-deference precedent that would have broad ramifications outside the tax context as well.

Background

Generally, the IRS has three years from the date a tax return is filed to assess additional tax on the ground that a taxpayer underreported its tax liability.  Under 26 U.S.C. § 6501(e)(1)(A), however, there is an extended six-year statute of limitations if the taxpayer “omits from gross income” a significant amount that it should have included.  A similar provision governing partnership tax returns is found at 26 U.S.C. § 6229(c)(2).  The question presented in Home Concrete is whether that “omits from gross income” language includes a situation where a taxpayer overstates its basis. 

The textual question at the heart of this case goes back almost 70 years.  The 1939 Internal Revenue Code, which was later superseded by the 1954 Code, contained a provision with language identical to that of current section 6501(e)(1)(A).  Taxpayers argued that the extended statute of limitations applied only when there was a literal omission of gross income – that is, a failure to list an item of gross income on the return.  The government argued that the extended statute also applied when there was an overstatement of basis, because that leads to an understatement of gross income.  The issue generated a circuit conflict and eventually made it to the Supreme Court in the Colony case. 

In the meantime, Congress enacted the 1954 Code, which largely carried forward the previous statute.  Congress did not change the “omits from gross income” language and did not directly address the then-existing dispute about its scope.  Congress did add a new subsection that specifically defined “gross income” in the case of a trade or business, and it defined that term so that an overstatement of basis could not possibly be an omission of “gross income.”

Thereafter, the Colony case arrived in the Supreme Court.  Construing the 1939 Code, the Court ruled for the taxpayer, holding that “the statute is limited to situations in which specific receipts or accruals of income are left out of the computation of gross income” and therefore it did not apply to overstatements of basis.  Little did the Court know that 50 years later litigants would be parsing its reasoning to see how the case fits into the framework of Chevron – specifically, whether the Colony Court should be understood to have found the statutory language before it unambiguous.  Two statements by the Colony Court are particularly relevant.  First, the Court stated that, although the statutory text “lends itself more plausibly to the taxpayer’s interpretation, it cannot be said that the language is unambiguous.”  The Court then looked to the legislative history, where it found persuasive support for the taxpayer, and also concluded that the government’s interpretation would apply the statute more broadly than necessary to achieve Congress’s purpose.  Second, having been urged by the parties to consider whether the new legislation shed any light on the meaning of the 1939 Code, the Court stated that its conclusion was “in harmony with the unambiguous language” of the 1954 Code.

Fast forward 50 years.  The issue has lain dormant, as everyone assumed that Colony controlled the interpretation of the identical language in the 1954 Code.  The IRS learned that many taxpayers had engaged in a series of securities transactions that came to be known as a Son-of-BOSS transaction.  The IRS views this transaction as a tax avoidance scheme that manipulates certain tax rules to produce an artificially inflated basis for an asset that is then sold, producing either a noneconomic paper loss or a smaller gain than it should.  The IRS has successfully challenged these transactions, with the courts generally concluding that they lack “economic substance” and therefore the taxpayers cannot take advantage of the apparent tax benefits.  But in many cases, the IRS discovered that more than three years had elapsed before it could challenge the tax treatment, and therefore the standard statute of limitations had expired.

Seeking to recover what it estimated as almost $1 billion in unpaid taxes, the IRS began to argue that the extended six-year statute of limitations applied to these transactions because they involved an overstatement of basis.  It contended that Colony was not controlling because the Court’s decision should be limited to the 1939 Code and that a different result should obtain in the Son-of-BOSS cases (which arise outside the “trade or business” context and hence are not encompassed within the new subsection added in 1954).  This argument initially fell flat in the courts, as the Tax Court and the Ninth and Federal Circuits held that Colony controls the interpretation of the “omits from gross income” language of the 1954 Code.

The government then moved on to Plan B.  The Treasury Department issued temporary regulations interpreting the “omits from gross income” language to include overstatements of basis.  (These regulations have since been issued without material change as final regulations after a notice-and-comment period.)  The government then filed a motion for reconsideration in the Intermountain case, arguing that the Tax Court should reverse its decision because of an “intervening change in the law” requiring it to accord Chevron deference to the new regulatory interpretation.  The Tax Court was unimpressed, voting 13-0 (in three different opinions giving three different grounds) against the government.

Unfazed, the government filed appeals in several cases heading to different circuits, and the tide began to turn.  First, the Seventh Circuit became the only court thus far to agree with the government’s statutory argument.  The Fourth and Fifth Circuits quickly rejected that view and also rejected the government’s Chevron argument, holding that after Colony there was no ambiguity for the Treasury Department to interpret.  Three other court of appeals decisions followed in short order, however, and all three circuits ruled for the government on Chevron deference grounds.  Of particular note on that point is the Federal Circuit’s decision, since the Federal Circuit had already rejected the government’s pre-regulation statutory interpretation.  The Federal Circuit explained that it still believed that the taxpayer had the best reading of the statute, but that it was required to defer to the regulation because it could not say that the regulation’s interpretation was unreasonable.  The Court granted certiorari in Home Concrete, the Fourth Circuit case, to resolve the conflict.

Arguments

With respect to the meaning of the statute, the taxpayer rests primarily on Colony, characterizing the IRS as having “overruled” that decision.  The taxpayer argues that its reliance on stare decisis is buttressed by the fact that Congress reenacted the same statutory language in later years against the background of Colony, thereby putting a legislative stamp on the Court’s determination that the words “omits from gross income” should be interpreted not to include overstatements of basis. 

The government in turn argues that Colony is irrelevant because it involved a different statute, which was materially changed in 1954 when Congress added a subsection making clear that there is no extended statute of limitations for overstatements of basis by a trade or business.  Implicit in Congress’s decision to make that addition was its understanding that overstatements of basis would be covered outside of the trade or business context; otherwise, the new provision would be superfluous.  The taxpayer responds that the new subsection is not superfluous and that it is absurd to conclude that the 1954 Code cut back on taxpayers’ statute of limitations protections when the only changes made to the statute favored taxpayers. 

In addition to the Colony-related arguments, both sides argue that their position reflects the best reading of the statutory text and purpose.  The taxpayer argues that “omits” means leaving something out, while the government emphasizes that overstatements of basis inevitably cause an understatement (that is, an “omission” of a portion) of gross income.

The taxpayer makes a couple of other narrow arguments that could theoretically divert the Court from reaching the deference issue:  (1) that the regulations were procedurally defective; and (2) that by their terms, the regulations do not apply to cases like this one, where the three-year statute had already expired before the regulations were promulgated.  These arguments did not prevail in any court of appeals, and the Court is unlikely to adopt them.  That will lead the Court to a deference issue of potentially broad doctrinal significance.

Back in 1971, the Second Circuit thought it obvious that the Treasury Department did not have the power to affect pending litigation that the government claims here, stating that “the Commissioner may not take advantage of his power to promulgate retroactive regulations during the course of litigation for the purpose of providing himself with a defense based on the presumption of validity accorded to such regulations.”  But the D.C. Circuit, in reversing the Tax Court’s reviewed Intermountain decision, said that the Second Circuit’s statement has been “superseded” by Supreme Court precedent.  The Home Concrete case is well positioned to determine who is right.

Basically, the government argues that the Court’s Chevron jurisprudence has already crossed all the lines that are necessary to get to its desired end result here.  In Smiley v. Citibank, N.A., the Court afforded deference to a regulation in a case that was already pending when the regulation was issued, stating that it was irrelevant whether the regulation was prompted by litigation.  In National Cable & Telecomms. Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Servs., the Court afforded deference to a regulation that overturned existing court of appeals precedent, holding that a “court’s prior judicial construction of a statute trumps an agency construction otherwise entitled to Chevron deference only if the prior court decision holds that its construction follows from the unambiguous terms of the statute and thus leaves no room for agency discretion.”  Put those two together, the government argues, and there is no justification for failing to defer to Treasury’s interpretation because Colony had described the 1939 statute as not “unambiguous.” 

Not so fast, says the taxpayer, arguing that, after Colony, the law was settled and there was no ambiguity that could permissibly be “clarified” by regulation.  Smiley is different, because the regulation there did not overturn a previously settled interpretation.  Brand X is not applicable because Colony is properly read as having held that Congress did unambiguously express its intent not to include overstatements of basis.  More generally, the taxpayer contends that the retroactive effect of the government’s position is a bridge too far that is not authorized by these precedents.  Among the several amicus briefs filed in support of the taxpayer, one filed by the American College of Tax Counsel focuses exclusively on the retroactivity question, asserting that “retroactive fighting regulations” designed to change the outcome of pending litigation “are inconsistent with the highest traditions of the rule of law” and should not be afforded Chevron deference.

Analysis

At the end of the day, the deference issue may turn on the Court’s comfort level with the amount of authority the government is asking courts to concede to agencies – particularly an agency frequently in a position to advance its fiscal interest through regulations that will affect its own litigation.  That general topic has been flagged in the court of appeals opinions.  In the Federal Circuit decision holding that the new regulation trumped that court’s precedent, the court observed that the case “highlights the extent of the Treasury Department’s authority over the Tax Code” because “Congress has the power to give regulatory agencies, not the courts, primary responsibility to interpret ambiguous statutory provisions.”  Conversely, Judge Wilkinson cautioned in his concurring opinion in Home Concrete that “agencies are not a law unto themselves,” but must “operate in a system in which the last words in law belong to Congress and the Supreme Court.”  In his view, the government’s invocation of Chevron deference in this case wrongly “pass[es] the point where the beneficial application of agency expertise gives way to a lack of accountability and risk of arbitrariness.”

In recent years, the Court has not evinced much concern over the amount of power that its Chevron jurisprudence has given to agencies.  But this case could induce it to look more closely at the big picture.  Justice Scalia’s position will be of particular interest.  Justice Scalia was an early force in the development of Chevron deference, dating back to his time on the D.C. Circuit shortly after Chevron was decided.  But recently, he has expressed some uneasiness that the way in which the doctrine has developed had given agencies too much power.  He dissented in Brand X, commenting that the decision was creating a “breathtaking novelty:  judicial decisions subject to reversal by executive officers.”  And just last June, he noted in a concurring opinion in Talk America, Inc. v. Michigan Bell Telephone Co., that he would be open to reconsidering Auer v. Robbins (a decision that he authored in 1997) because its rule of extreme deference to an agency’s interpretations of its own regulations “encourages the agency to enact vague rules which give it the power, in future adjudications, to do what it pleases.”  Justice Scalia’s questions at oral argument, and the reaction of other Justices to them, will be worth watching. 

 

Third Circuit Considering Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits in Historic Boardwalk Case

[Note:  Miller and Chevalier represents amicus National Trust for Historic Preservation in this case]

We present here a guest post by our colleague David Blair who has considerable experience in this area and authored the amicus brief in this case on behalf of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The government has appealed to the Third Circuit its loss before the Tax Court in Historic Boardwalk Hall, LLC v. Comm’r, which involves a public/private partnership that earned historic rehabilitation tax credits under Code section 47.  The partnership rehabilitated East Hall, which is located on the boardwalk in Atlantic City.  East Hall was completed in 1929, hosted the Miss America Pageant for many years, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The IRS sought to prevent the private partner, Pitney Bowes, from claiming the historic rehabilitation tax credits, but the Tax Court upheld the taxpayer’s position after a four-day trial.  

In its opening brief, the government advances the same three arguments in support of its disallowance that it made in the Tax Court.  First, it asserts that Pitney Bowes was not in substance a partner because it did not have a meaningful stake in the partnership under the Culbertson-Tower line of cases.  Second, it argues that the partnership was a sham for tax purposes under sham partnership and economic substance cases.  Third, it argues that the partnership did not own the historic building for tax purposes and thus was not eligible for the section 47 credits for rehabilitating the building.  In making the first two arguments, the government relies heavily on its recent victory in Virginia Historic Tax Credit Fund 2001 LP v. Comm’r, where the Fourth Circuit overturned the Tax Court and found a disguised sale of state tax credits.  (See our previous reports on that case here.)  Similarly, the government’s brief places heavy reliance on its first-round victory before the Second Circuit in TIFD III-E, Inc. v. Comm’r (Castle Harbor), which is now back up on appeal.  (See our previous reports on that case here.)  In support of its sham partnership theory, the government cites provisions in the partnership agreement that protect investors from unnecessary risks, including environmental risks.  On the third argument, the government asserts that the partnership never owned the building for tax purposes because the benefits and burdens of ownership never transferred.

Having won at trial, the taxpayer’s brief emphasizes the Tax Court’s factual findings in its favor.  It also emphasizes the historic character of the building and the Congressional policy of using the tax laws to encourage private investment to preserve this type of historic structure.  The taxpayer argues that the partnership was bona fide because the partners joined together with a business purpose of rehabilitating East Hall and earning profits going forward.  The taxpayer also argues that the partnership has economic substance.  In this regard, the taxpayer argues that the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Sacks v. Comm’r, 69 F.3d 982 (9th Cir. 1995), requires a modification of the normal economic substance analysis where Congress has offered tax credits to change taxpayers’ incentives.  The taxpayer also argues that the partnership owned East Hall for tax purposes and therefore was eligible for the section 47 credits.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed an amicus brief in support of the taxpayer.  That brief sets out the longstanding Congressional policy of offering the section 47 credit to encourage taxpayers to invest in historic rehabilitation projects that would not otherwise make economic sense.  It further explains that historic rehabilitation projects typically involve partnerships between developers and investors that are motivated in part by the availability of the credit.  It also is typical for these partnership agreements to protect the investors from unnecessarily taking on business risks.  The amicus brief argues that, in applying the economic substance doctrine, courts should not override the narrowly focused Congressional policy of encouraging rehabilitation projects through the section 47 credit.  Thus, courts should not simply review the non-tax business purpose and pre-tax profitability of investments in historic rehabilitation projects, but should acknowledge that the taxpayer can properly take into account the credits that Congress provides for historic rehabilitation projects.  To do otherwise, as the Ninth Circuit observed in Sacks, “takes away with the executive hand what [the government] gives with the legislative.”  The amicus argues that, at any rate, the transaction met the economic substance doctrine under Third Circuit precedent and that the partnership and Pitney Bowes interests were bona fide.  It also points out that the Virginia Historic case is inapplicable because it involved a disguised sale, which the government has not alleged in this case.  Similarly, the Castle Harbor case is distinguished on its facts due to the differences in the partnership agreements in the two cases. 

The Real Estate Roundtable also filed an amicus brief, which highlights to the court that the recent codification of the economic substance doctrine in Code section 7701(o) places significant pressure on the distinction between, on the one hand, the economic substance doctrine, and on the other hand, substance-over-form and other “soft doctrine” attacks on transactions.  This is due to the strict liability penalty that can apply to transactions that violate the economic substance doctrine.  As the IRS has recognized in recent guidance under section 7701(o), it is necessary for the IRS and courts to carefully distinguish between cases where the economic substance doctrine is “relevant” and those where other judicial doctrines apply.  The Real Estate Round Table then argues that the transaction at issue had economic substance.

The government’s reply brief is due January 31.

Historic Boardwalk – Tax Court opinion

Historic Boardwalk – Government’s Opening Brief

Historic Boardwalk – Taxpayer’s Response Brief

Historic Boardwalk – Amicus Brief of National Trust for Historic Preservation

Historic Boardwalk – Amicus Brief of Real Estate Roundtable

Supreme Court Struggles With Confusing Criminal Tax and Deportation Interplay in Kawashima Oral Argument

We are finally getting around to updating Kawashima, the Supreme Court case involving the question of whether a conviction under section 7206 is a deportable offense under the immigration laws.  The Court heard argument on the case back in November.  A decision likely will be issued this spring.  It’s hard to read which way the Court is leaning based on the arguments.  Several Justices seemed to balk at petitioners’ technical argument that a false statement on a return (under section 7206) can be something less than intending to deceive the IRS (a crime involving “fraud or deceit” is deportable under the immigration laws — see our prior post).

The argument first focused on the Code’s “willfulness” concept and whether the requirement in section 7206 that the false statement be submitted willfully in fact turned an act that — without willfulness — might not be intended to deceive into something that showed intent to deceive.  Petitioners’ counsel tried to focus the Court on the concept that intent to deceive required intent to induce an action or reliance and not merely intent to make a false statement.  This position seemed to concern several Justices given that the false statement was on a document submitted to the government for a specific purpose (reporting taxes).  The argument also briefly turned to the question of the case law — largely Tax Court case law — which historically held that a conviction under section 7206 did not automatically trigger the extended limitations period for fraud unless the IRS independently proved fraud.  The Justices did not substantively comment on this point during petitioners’ time but came back to it during the government’s argument and it seemed to get some traction with the Chief Justice.

Petitioners’ counsel and Justice Scalia spent a substantial amount of time discussing whether the inclusion of both section 7201 and the “fraud or deceit” provision in the deportation law rendered the former superfluous if the government’s reading was adopted.  This involved a discussion of the text of section 7201, which has long been textually framed as an attempt “to evade or defeat any tax” and does not specifically use the words fraud or deceit.  While the Justices did not seem to be happy with the responses by petitioners’ counsel, an amicus brief submitted by Johnnie Walters — a former IRS Commissioner — deals with the history and meaning of section 7201 quite compellingly.  And when questioning the government’s counsel, Justices Ginsburg and Kagan both seemed concerned that the government’s position could read one part of the deportation statute out of the law based on this historic reading of section 7201.  This led Justice Breyer to introduce the idea that section 7206 does not seem to meet the common law definitions of fraud or deceit — a point not raised by counsel as best as we can tell — but something that could be relevant in determining Congressional intent.

Piercing through the government’s argument, Justice Kagan was able to get its counsel to admit that even the evasion-of-payment cases under section 7201 have to involve some sort of fraud in order to be prosecuted under that statute.  Counsel also basically admitted that the IRS/DOJ has never prosecuted a section 7201 case that didn’t involve fraud.  This triggered a question by Justice Breyer as to whether the government’s position would make every single perjury statute a deportable offense — something that would profoundly impact both defendants and the system.  Justice Kagan then returned to the circularity of the government’s arguments regarding superfluity (a point we have made a few times previously).

As we said at the outset, it is difficult to see where all of this is going.  Petitioners do seem to us to have the stronger case when you consider the historic meaning of section 7201 (which is fundamental to criminal tax practice) but the statutory text could be confusing when read outside of that context.  We will update you as soon as we see a decision.

Service Appeals Goosen Tax Court Decision to D.C. Circuit

We posted in November 2011 about the Tax Court’s decision on the character and source of golfer Retief Goosen’s endorsement income.  The Service appealed that decision to the D.C. Circuit in December.  The D.C. Circuit case number is 11-1478.  We’ll post updates as the appeal progresses.