Briefing Complete and Argument Scheduled in CIC Services

The Supreme Court has scheduled oral argument in the CIC Services case for December 1.  As has been the practice at the Court since March because of the pandemic, the argument will not occur in person, but rather will be conducted by telephone.  And the questioning therefore will be more structured instead of the traditional free-for-all.  After the advocate is allowed to give a brief, two-minute introduction without interruption, each Justice then will have a turn to ask questions — approximately three minutes for each Justice beginning with the Chief Justice and moving on in descending order of seniority from Justice Thomas down to new Justice Amy Coney Barrett — with the advocate allowed a minute or so at the end to sum up.

The taxpayer’s reply brief (linked below) reemphasizes the textual arguments made in its opening brief.  It contends that the government’s efforts to distinguish unfavorable precedent essentially amount to trying to revive the old principle of “tax exceptionalism,” which the Supreme Court explicitly rejected in 2011 in the Mayo Foundation case.  By contrast, the taxpayer asserts, the government makes no “serious attempt to interpret the words of the statutory text” — even though textual analysis is the correct way to resolve the case.

In addition to the textual analysis, the reply brief argues that the taxpayer’s position is supported by examining the purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act and argues at length that a ruling for the government would create constitutional problems because it would require a taxpayer to run the risk of criminal prosecution in order to raise a pre-enforcement challenge to a reporting requirement.

CIC Services – Taxpayer Reply Brief