2024-09-01
In August 2024, the Tax Court published 9 opinions, which included a total of 216 pages. Below are graphs for the month showing: (i) the top 15 code sections referenced, (ii) cases cited 4 or more times, (iii) the number of opinions by judge, and (iv) the number of pages by judge.
I am always interested in learning well-established tax principles. Often, court cases will explicitly indicate that a tax principle is well established or well settled. Or the court may concisely state the holding of a prior case in a parenthetical. Below are excerpts from the August 2024 Tax Court cases referring to these types of principles or holdings.
Henry v. Commr., T.C. Memo. 2024-79. (Gustafson)
[S]ee Venuto v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2017-123, at *9 ("The Court will not sort through the voluminous evidence to decide whether petitioner substantiated each and every expense he claimed")
Ryckman v. Commr., 163 T.C. No. 3 (2024). (Copeland)
See Fund for Animals, Inc. v. Kempthorne, 472 F.3d 872, 880 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) ("The [last-in-time rule] is quite similar to the familiar doctrine against implied repeal of statutes-under which courts will not interpret an ambiguous statute to repeal a prior statute.")
Ryckman v. Commr., 163 T.C. No. 3 (2024). (Copeland)
cf. Rocca v. Thompson, 223 U.S. 317, 332 (1912) ("[T]reaties are the subject of careful consideration before they are entered into, and are drawn by persons competent to express their meaning, and to choose apt words in which to embody the purposes of the high contracting parties.")
Ryckman v. Commr., 163 T.C. No. 3 (2024). (Copeland)
See, e.g., Richard E. Andersen, Andersen Analysis of United States Income Tax Treaties ¶ 24.03[1][b][ii] (2010) ("In accordance with th[e] doctrine [of the revenue rule], . . . the United States typically does not assist another country in the collection of taxes.").
Varian Medical Systems, Inc. v. Commr., 163 T.C. No. 4 (2024). (Toro)
See Champion Int'l Corp. v. Commissioner, 81 T.C. 424, 427 (1983) ("The effect [of section 78 was] to treat the domestic corporation as though it had received a distribution out of the foreign corporation's before-tax profits and then paid the foreign income tax thereon itself.")
Varian Medical Systems, Inc. v. Commr., 163 T.C. No. 4 (2024). (Toro)
See H.H. Robertson Co. v. Commissioner, 59 T.C. 53, 77 n.13 (1972) ("As a consequence of sec. 78 'gross-up,' the total profits of the foreign corporation in respect of a particular dividend would be taken into account for U.S. tax purposes . . . .")
Varian Medical Systems, Inc. v. Commr., 163 T.C. No. 4 (2024). (Toro)
Tex. Brine Co. v. Am. Arb. Ass'n, 955 F.3d 482, 486 (5th Cir. 2020) ("We are not the final editors of statutes, modifying language when we perceive some oversight.")
Varian Medical Systems, Inc. v. Commr., 163 T.C. No. 4 (2024). (Toro)
[S]ee also Metzger Tr. v. Commissioner, 693 F.2d 459, 472 (5th Cir. 1982) ("As understandable as it may be, yielding to the temptation to 'do equity' in a specific tax case by looking past plain language to judicially perceived purpose will not do.")
Varian Medical Systems, Inc. v. Commr., 163 T.C. No. 4 (2024). (Toro)
Koshland v. Helvering, 298 U.S. 441, 447 (1936) ("[W]here . . . the provisions of the act are unambiguous, and its directions specific, there is no power to amend it by regulation.")
Varian Medical Systems, Inc. v. Commr., 163 T.C. No. 4 (2024). (Toro)
[A]n interpretation is absurd only if the result would be "so gross as to shock the general moral or common sense," Crooks v. Harrelson, 282 U.S. 55, 60 (1930), or if it is "quite impossible that Congress could have intended the result . . . and [if] the alleged absurdity is so clear as to be obvious to most anyone"
Ya Global Investments, LP v. Commr., T.C. Memo. 2024-78. (Halpern)
See, e.g., Cusick v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1998-286, 1998 WL 440881, at *4 ("[T]he distinction between mere coowners and coowners who are engaged in a partnership lies in the degree of business activity of the coowners or their agents.")
Ya Global Investments, LP v. Commr., T.C. Memo. 2024-78. (Halpern)
In Mars, Inc. v. Commissioner, 88 T.C. 428, 435 (1987) (quoting United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., 392 U.S. 157, 170 (1968)), we wrote: "[I]t is well settled that 'the views of one Congress as to the construction of a statute adopted many years before by another Congress have "very little, if any, significance."'" In Mars, we addressed official legislative history: a report of the Senate Finance Committee. If postenactment legislative history should be given little, if any, weight, even less weight should be given to unofficial sources, such as Joint Committee staff explanations, purporting to interpret legislation enacted "many years before."
In August 2024, the IRS published 6 Announcements, Notices, Revenue Procedures, and Revenue Rulings, which included a total of 70 pages.
In August 2024, the IRS published 88 Written Determinations, which included a total of 497 pages.
