The case of Davison v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2019-26 raises the issue of contesting the merits of adjustments contained in a Final Partnership Administrative Adjustment (FPAA). The Tax Court determines that Mr. Davidson cannot raise the merits of those issues which resulted in computational adjustments to his return. He argued that he never had a chance to raise those issues. Essentially, the court says too bad. He also sought to raise the issue of the penalty imposed on him due to the amount of the adjustments. The court signals that he might have been able to raise that issue had he done so when he made his Collection Due Process (CDP) request but having failed to raise the separate penalty issue when he submitted his request he could not do so during the Tax Court proceeding.
read more...Mr. Davison was a partner in a partnership that had an interest in two other partnerships. The IRS audited the partnerships he did not directly own and made adjustments. Those adjustments flowed through to his individual return through the partnership interest he did own. Although the IRS sent the FPAA regarding the adjustments to the tax matters partners of the two partnerships, no one petitioned the Tax Court.
Years later as the IRS began to collect from him Mr. Davison requested a CDP hearing and sought in the hearing to raise the issue of his underlying liability. The Settlement Officer in Appeals told him that he could not do so and he ultimately petitioned the Tax Court. In Tax Court he tried to raise the issue of the liability arguing that he had not previously had the opportunity to litigate the merits of the tax assessed against him. As with most things involving TEFRA, things get tricky.
This is not the first case involving this issue which does not surprise me given that two decades have passed since Collection Due Process came into existence; however, I had not noticed this issue before. I thought that perhaps others may not have noticed the issue since it does not arise with great frequency in litigation. The prior decisional law drives the outcome in this case.
The Court states:
In Hudspath v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2005-83, aff’d, 177 F. App’x 326 (4th Cir. 2006), we addressed whether a taxpayer may contest his underlying income tax liability in a CDP case to the extent that this liability was based on computational adjustments resulting from a TEFRA proceeding. The case involved only income tax assessments for the taxpayer’s 1996 and 1997 taxable years that were attributable to computational adjustments resulting from two FPAAs. Those FPAAs had been the subject of a TEFRA proceeding that this Court ultimately dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. We held that pursuant to section 6330(c)(2)(B), the taxpayer was precluded from challenging the existence or amount of his 1996 and 1997 underlying income tax liabilities because he had had the opportunity, in the TEFRA proceeding, to challenge the partnership items that were reflected on the two FPAAs.
The instant case is indistinguishable from Hudspath. Pursuant to section 226(a) and (b), within 90 days of the mailing of an FPAA a tax matters partner may file a petition with this Court or other referenced Federal court for readjustment of the partnership items; and if the tax matters partner fails to file such a petition, any notice partner may file a petition for readjustment within 60 days after the 90-day period has closed. Here, the parties stipulated that on October 4 and 20, 2010, the IRS issued the Cedar Valley FPAA and the TARD Properties FPAA, but no petition was ever filed pursuant to this statutory prescription challenging either FPAA. These defaulted FPAAs then became binding and conclusive upon petitioner, allowing the IRS to make the computational adjustments to income that petitioner desires to place in dispute. See sec. 6230(c)(4); Genesis Oil & Gas, Ltd. v. Commissioner, 93 T.C. 562, 565-566 (1989). It is undisputed that petitioner’s income tax liability for 2005 was attributable solely to the computational adjustments resulting from the defaulted Cedar Valley FPAA and the defaulted TARD Properties FPAA. Accordingly, petitioner’s “earlier opportunity to dispute his liability” for income tax for 2005 was the opportunity to commence a TEFRA proceeding challenging the FPAAs upon their issuance.
Mr. Davison’s problem with this analysis stems from his lack of knowledge of the earlier opportunity to go to Tax Court. He complains that he never received notice of the FPAA and had no voice in whether the partnerships would file a Tax Court petition. He contends that he only learned about the FPAAs after the time to petition the Tax Court had passed. The IRS did not put on any evidence to contest his statement on this point – not that it was obligated to do so. There was also no indication that the IRS knew he was an indirect partner of the entities to which it issued the FPAAs. The court explained why this did not matter with respect to the issue of whether Mr. Davison could raise the underlying merits in the CDP case:
Under section 6223(h)(2), the tax matters partner of Six-D [this is the partnership in which Mr. Davison owned an interest] was required to forward copies of the Cedar Valley FPAA and the TARD Properties FPAA to petitioner. Furthermore, in any event, “[t]he failure of a tax matters partner, a pass-thru partner, the representative of a notice group, or any other representative of a partner to provide any notice or perform any act * * * [such as an appeal to an FPAA] does not affect the applicability of any proceeding or adjustment * * * to such partner.” Sec. 6230(f); Kimball v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2008-78, slip op. at 9. Because petitioner indirectly held interests in Cedar Valley and TARD Properties and section 6223(c)(3) is of no avail here, the IRS was not required to provide him individual notice of the FPAAs.
Therefore, we find that petitioner had a prior opportunity to challenge his liability for income tax attributable to the computational adjustments resulting from the defaulted TARD Properties FPAA (as well as the defaulted Cedar Valley FPAA) and is precluded from challenging this liability in this case.
So, Mr. Davison does not have the opportunity to raise the merits of the partnership adjustments in his CDP case. While harsh, this result is the same result outside of CDP and is a feature of the way TEFRA operates with respect to certain affected items. The case does not discuss what possibilities of success Mr. Davison might have had if the court had allowed him to contest the underlying liabilities. It seems that the tax matters partners would have raised the issue if a meritorious case existed. He was removed from those partnerships and would likely have had a difficult time marshalling the evidence to contest the liabilities even if he had been given the opportunity.
In addition to contesting the underlying liability, Mr. Davison sought to contest the accuracy related penalty imposed upon him for one of the years because of the amount of the liability. The court noted that the partnership should also contest the penalty; however, the TEFRA rules that prevent him from contesting the partnership adjustments would not keep him from contesting the application of the penalty in a refund action after he paid the penalty. Unfortunately, he runs into another barrier.
Mr. Davison raised the penalty issue for the first time in his Tax Court petition having failed to mention it in his CDP request. The court stated:
We find that he did not properly raise this issue below and therefore is precluded from challenging his liability for the penalty in this proceeding.
This result flows directly from the CDP regs and serves as a reminder of the need to anticipate all arguments in submitting the Form 12153 at the beginning of the CDP case. The IRS should receive the opportunity to consider all issues the taxpayer seeks to raise as it considers the case during the administrative phase. The court does not want to see an issue for the first time that the taxpayer has failed to previously mention.
I thought it was interesting that the petitioner, a Navy veteran and nuclear power plant operator in Missouri, was represented by his father, a Kansas lawyer who appears to have had some tax problems of his own. In 2014 he sued the accounting firm of Grant Thornton and the law firm of Bryan Cave, alleging that “Defendants disavowed knowledge of and responsibility for certain tax advice, which prompted a federal investigation of Plaintiff. The investigation resulted in a civil injunction, issued by the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri.” The case was dismissed based on jurisdictional grounds.
What turned out to be more interesting is that the son, petitioner in the Tax Court case filed in 2012, died at age 42 on March 22, 2019 – less than two weeks before the opinion was issued. Nevertheless, the case has been appealed to the 5th Circuit.
The case had been submitted for decision on the stipulated facts (Rule 122) in September 2015. The last pleading was submitted to Judge Ashford in March 2016, more than three years before her decision.