The week of November 16, 2020 was the week preceding Thanksgiving and the Tax Court’s transition to Dawson was looming, which meant orders would no longer be “designated” on a daily basis. The judges knew it may be one of their last opportunities to alert the public (and Procedurally Taxing) to an order. Many lengthy, novel and diverse orders were designated. As a result, my week in November warranted two parts, and this second part is my last post on designated orders ever. I’ve learned a lot over the last three and a half years, and I hope you all have too.
Answering Interrogatories while Incapacitated
In consolidated Docket No. 26812-12, 29644-12, 26052-13, 27243-15, 5314-16, 5315-16, 5136-16, 5318-16, Deerco, Inc., et al. v. CIR, the case involves the acquisition of a corporation and the subsequent removal of substantial plan assets (over $24 million) from the acquired corporation’s pension plan in 2008.
The petitioner who is the focus of this order was the President of the acquiring corporation and the trustee for the pension plan of the acquired corporation in control of the disposition of assets, so naturally, the IRS is very interested in what he has to say. Unfortunately, he is incapacitated. His counsel answered some of the IRS’s interrogatories on behalf of all the petitioners (individuals and entities) in this consolidated case by stating that they lack information or knowledge.
The IRS and Court find petitioners’ counsel’s answers to be insufficient for a couple reasons:
1) Rule 71(b) requires the answering party to make reasonable inquiry and ascertain readily available information. A party cannot simply state they lack the information without explaining the efforts they have made to obtain the information. Even though the petitioner is incapable of responding, the Court thinks he should have documents or records that would enable his counsel to answer the substance of the interrogatories. Petitioner also had an attorney and accountant assisting him during the transaction at issue, and those individuals may have useful information, documents, or records.
2) The Court also finds the answers are procedurally defective. The procedures, found in Rule 71(c), differ depending on whether an individual or an entity is providing the answer. In this case, petitioners’ counsel has signed under oath the answers on behalf of all petitioners. Counsel is permitted to answer and sign under oath for entities, but not for individuals. Individuals must sign and swear under oath themselves. The petitioner in this case can’t do that, but his wife has been appointed as his guardian, so she can.
There are other issues raised (such attorney-client privilege concerns), but the prevailing message is that the Court thinks petitioner’s counsel can do better and outlines the ways in which they can provide more adequate answers.
We Cannot See A Transferee
In consolidated Docket No. 19035-13, 19036-13, 19037-13, 19038-13, 19058-13, 19171-13, 19232-13, 19237-13, Liao, Transferees, et al. v. CIR, the IRS tries several avenues to prove that petitioners, who consist of the estate and heirs of a taxpayer who owned a holding company, called Carnes Oil, should be liable as transferees when an acquisition company ultimately sold the company’s assets and tried to use a tax shelter to offset the capital gains.
In this case, initially, a company called MidCoast offered to buy Carnes Oil’s shares. MidCoast has a history of facilitating a tax shelter known as an “intermediary transaction.” In another post for PT (here), Marilyn Ames covers a Sixth Circuit decision in Hawk, which involved MidCoast, intermediary transactions, and some implications under section 6901. In Hawk, the Court affirmed the Tax Court’s decision and held that petitioners’ lack of intent or knowledge cannot shield them from transferee liability when the substance of the transaction supports such a finding.
In this case, petitioners have moved for summary judgment, and their lack of knowledge is one of the factors the Court uses to ultimately determine petitioners should not be held liable as transferees. Petitioners’ case is distinguishable from Hawk, because the Court determines, in substance, the transaction was a real sale.
Petitioners didn’t accept MidCoast’s offer, but instead accepted an offer from another company called ASI. More details are fleshed out below, but long story short- the IRS argues an “intermediary transaction” occurred. In support of this the IRS insists that the economic substance doctrine (a question of law) and substance over form analysis (a question of fact) show that what looked like a sale of stock for money was really the sale of Carnes Oil’s assets followed by a liquidating distribution directly from the company to petitioners. The IRS seeks to reclassify the estate and heirs from sellers to transferees to hold them liable.
Even viewing the facts in a light most favorable to the IRS, the Court disagrees under both analyses. The heirs reside in different states, so the appellate jurisdiction varies. The Court acknowledges that they may have to contend with subtle conflicts among the jurisdictions, but regardless of the jurisdiction, whether a transaction has economic substance requires a close examination of the facts.
The facts show that when petitioners sold their stock the company still had non-cash assets, and those assets weren’t liquidated until after ASI controlled it. Petitioners also weren’t shareholders of the dissolved corporation, because it continued to exist for over a year after they sold it.
The facts are not clear as to where ASI got the money to pay petitioners, but after tracing the funds from relevant bank accounts, the Court determined it did not come from Carnes Oil, or a loan secured by their shares.
Neither the petitioners nor their advisers had actual knowledge of what ASI was planning to do. The IRS says there were red flags and petitioners should have known, but the Court finds Carnes Oil was a family company using local lawyers in a small town, and the shareholders reasonably accepted the highest bid.
It was a real sale. The company got an asset-rich corporation and petitioners got cash. The Court grants petitioners’ motion for summary judgment – a win for petitioners in an increasingly pro-IRS realm.
Gone and Abandoned
In Docket No. 23676-18, Miller v. CIR, the Court dismisses a deceased petitioner’s case for lack of prosecution despite his wife being appointed as his personal representative. Petitioner died less than a month after petitioning the Tax Court in 2018 and after some digging the IRS found information about petitioner’s wife.
The Court reached out to her and warned that if she failed to respond the case was at risk of being dismissed with a decision entered in respondent’s favor. The Court did not receive a response.
Rule 63(a) governs when a petitioner dies and allows the Court to order a substitution of the proper parties. Local law determines who can be a substitute. The Court’s jurisdiction continues when someone is deceased, but someone must be lawfully authorized to act on behalf of the estate. If no one steps up the prosecution of the case is deemed to be abandoned.
The Court finds petitioner is liable for the deficiency amount, but it’s not a total loss for the estate, because IRS can’t prove they complied with section 6751(b) so the proposed accuracy-related penalty is not sustained.
All’s Fair in Love and SNOD
In consolidated Docket No. 7671-17 and 10878-16, Roman et. al. v. CIR, a pro se married couple with separate, but consolidated Tax Court matters moves the Court to reconsider its decision to deny petitioners’ earlier motions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. The motions were disposed of by bench opinion.
The Court reviews the record and determines that petitioner made objections that have yet to be ruled on.
First, however, it explains that there are two procedural reasons for why petitioner motions could be denied. Petitioners filed the present motion under Rule 183, but that rule only applies to cases tried before a Special Trial Judge. Petitioners in this case have not yet had a trial, the bench opinion only exists to dispose of petitioners’ motions to dismiss, so Rule 183 is not applicable. Additionally, the motions for reconsideration were filed more than 30 days after the petitioners received the transcripts in their case, so they were not timely under rule 161.
Even though the motions could be denied for those reasons, the Court goes on to consider the merits of petitioners’ arguments.
Petitioners’ argue that the Court lacks jurisdiction because their notices of deficiency were invalid because they were not issued under Secretary’s authority as required by section 6212(a).
Petitioner wife argues her notice of deficiency is invalid because it originated from an Automated Underreported (AUR) department and was issued by a computer system, which is not a under a permissible delegation of the Secretary’s authority.
Petitioner husband’s notice of deficiency was issued by a Revenue Agent Reviewers about a year later. He argues that his notice is invalid because the person who signed the notice was not named on the notice and she did not have delegated authority to issue the notice. The IRS was not sure who issued the notice, but there were three possibilities. Petitioner husband says not knowing who specifically issued the notice constitutes fraud.
After reviewing the code, regulations, extensive case law, and the Internal Revenue Manual the Court concludes both notices were issued under permissible delegations of the Secretary’s authority and the case can proceed to trial.
Orders not discussed:
- In Docket No. 25660-17, Belmont Interests, Inc. v. CIR, the Court needs more information from the IRS about how it plans to use the exhibits which petitioner wants deemed inadmissible. According to IRS, the exhibits support the duty of consistency related to representations made by petitioner. Petitioner states the exhibits include representations made in negotiations directed toward the resolution of prior cases involving the same or very similar issues and the F.R.E. 408(a) bars their admission.
- Docket No. 10204-19, Spagnoletti v. CIR (order here) petitioner moves to vacate or revise the decision in his CDP case based on arguments made in the original opinion which the Court found were not raised during in the CDP hearing nor supported by the record, so the Court denies the motion.
- Docket No. 11183-19, Bright v. CIR and Docket No. 18783-19, Williams v. CIR, two bench opinions in which petitioners were denied work-related deductions primarily due to lack of proper proof.