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Tax Court Clarifies the Rules and Grants IRS’s Motion to Compel Nonconsensual Depositions

by and | Jul 12, 2016 | , ,

On July 8, 2016, Judge Buch of the US Tax Court (Tax Court) granted the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) motion to compel depositions of six individuals in Dynamo Holdings Ltd. P’ship v. Commissioner.  That case involves the question of whether certain transfers between related entities are disguised gifts or loans.  The IRS has been attempting to take sworn testimony of individuals relating to its examination of Dynamo for several years, which was part of the Supreme Court’s opinion in United States v. Clarke, 135 S.Ct. 2361 (2014).  That summons’s enforcement action is still proceeding. (See United States v. Clarke, lead case: 15-11663).  As a subject of the ongoing discovery disputes, the IRS filed a motion to compel the depositions of six witnesses from Dynamo in the Tax Court. We have previously discussed the Tax Court’s prior opinion in this case regarding the use of predictive coding in responding to the IRS’s discovery requests for electronically stored information.

The Tax Court recognized its longstanding position that nonconsensual depositions are an extraordinary method of discovery.  In ruling on the motion to compel depositions, the court explained the two requirements necessary under the Tax Court Rules of Practice and Procedure (Tax Court Rules) to consider such a motion and three factors to consider in deciding whether to grant such a motion.  To request nonconsensual depositions, the movant must show:  (1) the testimony that the movant seeks to obtain through the depositions is discoverable under Rule 70(b) of the Tax Court Rules; and (2) the testimony sought practicably cannot be obtained through informal consultation or communication, interrogatories, requests for production of documents, or consensual depositions.

If the movant can establish the two requirements, the court will weigh the movant’s:  (1) basis for the deposition; (2) purposes of the depositions other than having a substitute for cross-examination; and (3) prior opportunities to obtain the information sought through the depositions.

Judge Buch found that the two requirements were met because the testimony sought was central to this case, and the IRS could only obtain the information through the examinations, which four of the six witnesses refused to attend.  Additionally, he found that all three factors weighed in favor of compelling the depositions because the information was directly related to the witnesses’ knowledge, which was hard to access through other means, and the IRS has not had a chance to obtain the information because of the witnesses’ refusals to appear when summoned.

Practice Note:  Historically, depositions in the Tax Court were rare.  Since the Tax Court Rules were amended in recent years, this discovery practice has increased dramatically.  In the last five years we have seen the IRS increasingly and routinely request depositions.  This discovery tool, although not at the level that is experienced in district court, is one of the IRS’s new techniques to solidify the taxpayer’s position prior to trial.  We expect this practice to continue for the foreseeable future.  What does this mean to taxpayers?  The costs of litigating in Tax [...]

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Tax Court (Again) Rejects IRS Use of Secret Subpoenas

by | Jul 11, 2016 | , , ,

On July 8, 2016, Judge Mark V. Holmes of the US Tax Court issued an order in Ernest S. Ryder & Associates, Inc., APLC, et al., v. Commissioner, ordering the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to serve on the taxpayer all non-party subpoenas that he had issued in the case, together with all responses and documents that nonparties produced after receiving those subpoenas. The order mirrored a prior order issued by Judge Holmes almost a year ago in Kissling v. Commissioner, Dkt. No. 19857 (July 16, 2015).

In both cases, the IRS served subpoenas on third parties (77 subpoenas in the most recent case) and argued to the court that there is no Tax Court rule that requires him to notify taxpayers about whom he is subpoenaing in a Tax Court case, and he would prefer to keep his pretrial preparation secret. Although Judge Holmes agreed that the Tax Court’s rules do not specifically require notice of non-party subpoenas, he disagreed with the IRS that this absence creates an implication that secret subpoenas are favored. Reviewing the history of its rules on subpoenas and the close connection with Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 45, which requires notice to other parties before service of non-party subpoenas for the production of documents, information, or tangible things, Judge Holmes adopted the notification requirement of Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 45 as a modification to the pretrial order that governed the case.

In our experience, the IRS does not view Kissling as the law in the Tax Court and questions its value. It remains to be seen whether the Tax Court will formally adopt the notification requirement in Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 45 or will continue to permit each judge to determine how to deal with secret subpoenas. Unless and until the court amends its rules, issues an opinion on the issue, or the IRS voluntarily follows the approach set forth by Judge Holmes, taxpayers and their counsel should consider as part of their pretrial preparation in Tax Court cases requesting from the IRS notice of all subpoenas issued to non-parties along with copies of all subpoenas, responses and documents produced by the non-parties. This request should be noted as being continuing in nature. If the IRS asserts that no subpoenas have been issued, taxpayers can use this representation against the IRS if they later discover that non-party subpoenas were issued. If the IRS refuses to respond or produce the requested information, taxpayers can point to these two orders as persuasive authority (albeit non-precedential and non-binding) that notice should be provided and the information should be produced.



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IRS Updates List of Items Requiring National Office Review

by and | Jul 7, 2016 | , , , , ,

On June 30, 2016, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued Chief Counsel Notice 2016-009, which can be found here. In the notice, the IRS updated the list of issues that require IRS National Office review (the List). The List indicates those issues or matters raised by IRS field examiners that must be coordinated with the appropriate IRS Associate office.

There are several new items on the List. Notably, corporate formations with repatriation transactions, certain spin-off transactions and transactions that may implicate Treasury Regulation § 1.701-2 partnership anti-abuse rules are now also included. Debt-equity issues pursuant to Section 385 continue to be on the List.

In addition, now included are issues designated for litigation and issues that for technical tax reasons will not be referred to the IRS Office of Appeals under Revenue Procedure 2016-22, Section 3.03 (also relating to issues designated for litigation). We discussed Revenue Procedure 2016-22 in a recent posting. (more…)



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Supreme Court Issues Opinion Addressing Interplay between APA Procedural Compliance and Chevron Difference

by | Jul 6, 2016 | , ,

In Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, Sup. Ct. No. 15-415 (June 20, 2016), the Supreme Court of the United States invalidated a regulation issued by the US Department of Labor (DOL) under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In doing so, it affirmed long-standing precedent regarding the procedural requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) and addressed the effect of noncompliance with those requirements on the deference, if any, courts must afford agency pronouncements. Thus, even though it is not a tax case, it is likely to have an effect on cases in which taxpayers argue that a treasury regulation is invalid.

The Court’s holding here is based upon an agency’s unexplained change in a long-standing position. The FLSA requires employers to pay overtime compensation to covered employees who work more than 40 hours in a given week. It exempts from this requirement “any salesman, partman, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles” at a covered dealership. From 1978 to 2011, the DOL’s position was that such employees were exempt from the overtime-pay rule. This position was set forth in a number of published pronouncements, including proposed regulations in 2008. However, when the regulations were finalized in 2011, the DOL took the opposite position. In a suit brought by a number of service advisors against a dealership for overtime pay, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit resolved the matter by giving Chevron deference to the DOL’s interpretation embodied in the 2011 regulations, holding for the plaintiff employees. The Supreme Court majority denied Chevron deference and remanded the case to the Ninth Circuit for further proceedings on the meaning of the underlying statutory language. (more…)



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Commissioner Files Opening Brief in Ninth Circuit Appeal of Altera

by | Jul 5, 2016 | , , , ,

In Altera Corp. v. Commissioner, 145 T.C. No. 3 (July 27, 2015), the Tax Court, in a unanimous reviewed opinion, held that regulations under Section 482 requiring parties to a qualified cost-sharing agreement (QCSA) to include stock-based compensation costs in the cost pool to comply with the arm’s-length standard were procedurally invalid because the US Deparment of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) did not engage in the “reasoned decisionmaking” required by the Administrative Procedures Act and the cases interpreting it. For a discussion of the Tax Court’s Altera opinion, see our prior On the Subject. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue (Commissioner) appealed this holding to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals; he filed his opening brief on June 27, 2016.

According to the Commissioner, the Tax Court’s holding was based on several related errors: (1) the Tax Court mistakenly concluded that promulgation of the QCSA regs required the IRS to engage in an “essentially empirical” analysis; (2) this led the court to apply the wrong standard; (3) in its analysis, the court relied heavily on its holding in Xilinx, Inc. v. Commissioner, 125 T.C. 37 (2005), that analysis of QCSAs must comport with the arm’s-length standard, meaning that a taxpayer can defend a QCSA by reference to comparable behavior between unrelated parties; and (4) the Tax Court failed to take into account that the finalization of the new QCSA regulations worked a “change in the legal landscape,” which should have altered the court’s analysis of the new regulations’ validity. Moreover, “the coordinating amendments [to the existing QCSA regulations] supersede [the Ninth Circuit’s] understanding of the arm’s-length standard as reflected in its own Xilinx opinion.” (more…)



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Tax Court Adopts Rules for Judicial Conduct and Judicial Disability Complaints

by and | Jun 15, 2016 | , ,

In a June 14, 2016 press release (available here), Chief Judge L. Paige Marvel of the United States Tax Court announced the adoption of rules for judicial conduct and judicial disability complaints.  The rules conform with the Rules for Judicial Conduct and Judicial Disability Proceedings promulgated by the Judicial Conference of the United States.  Links to the rules can be found here.

On a somewhat related point, at least one taxpayer has filed a motion for reconsideration related to an unfavorable ruling made by former Judge Diane L. Kroupa.  It remains to be seen how the Tax Court will deal with that motion and the fall-out from Judge Kroupa’s criminal indictment for tax evasion while she was a Tax Court judge.  Prior coverage of Judge Kroupa’s indictment for tax evasion can be found here.



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Tax Court Rules in Favor of Medtronic in Transfer Pricing Case Against IRS

by and | Jun 10, 2016 | , , ,

At least a partial taxpayer victory in the Medtronic case, T.C. Memo. 2016-112. The Tax Court held that Medtronic met its burden of showing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) abused its discretion by  making arbitrary and capricious Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 482 reallocations with respect to taxable income of Medtronic’s Puerto Rico subsidiary. It further concluded that the IRS’s use of the comparable profits method is not required under the IRC Section 482 commensurate with income standard. Although the Tax Court found the taxpayer’s royalty rates established using the comparable uncontrolled transaction method to be unreasonable, the court undertook to determine the proper allocations itself, and made two significant adjustments to the taxpayer’s royalty rates. Finally, the court rejected the IRS’s alternative allocation that intangibles were transferred under IRC Section 367(d).



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ABA Seeks Priority Guidance for Transfer Pricing Issues

by | Jun 7, 2016 | , ,

The ABA recently issued comments to the IRS and Treasury regarding the new temporary regulations issued in TD 9738 concerning the aggregation of controlled transactions, under Section 482, which broaden (“clarify”) the scope of intangible value, to include “all the value provided” from a controlled transaction, and such other transactions that may occur before, during or after, that are so interrelated, as to require aggregate consideration. See attached. While the IRS does not explicitly mention goodwill or going concern—except by reference in one example—the regulations are intended to sweep in the consideration of any goodwill, including synergy, value that may relate to such transactions.

Given the inherent difficulty, and the persistent controversy, as exhibited in the past (i.e., the Veritas and Amazon cases) and as certainly more is yet to come (BEPS) in attempting to determine the value of intangibles generally, let alone goodwill, for the sake of good tax administration, the IRS would do well to provide more concrete/ explicit definitions, or at least boundaries, as to what or when this “extra” value may, or may not, be likely to apply.

This broader scope of consideration is now likely to make it easier for the IRS to recast transactions on economic substance or realistic alternatives grounds, leading to more controversy and disputes, not just with taxpayers, but with foreign governments as well.



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“Snow Day” Case Highlights Importance of Timely Filing Requirements

by and | Jun 3, 2016 | , ,

On June 2, 2016, the  US Tax Court issued a unanimous court-reviewed opinion in Guralnik v. Commissioner, 146 T.C. No. 15 (available here), addressing several points related to the timely filing of court documents.  The opinion provides important reminders to taxpayers to ensure that they meeting filing deadlines. (more…)



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Two Current Tax Controversies Utilize ‘Quick Peek’ Agreements to Resolve Privilege Disputes

by and | May 31, 2016 | , , , ,

Due to the enormous amount of electronic data stored by companies in the modern era, discovery requests can involve millions of documents which need to be reviewed prior to being turned over to the opposing party.  In conducting their analysis of this overwhelming quantity of information, litigants must, amongst other things, detect and exclude any privileged material.  Should a party inadvertently fail to do so before such records reach the hands of the opposing counsel, he/she will be deemed to waive privilege in many jurisdictions.  Given the massive quantity of data, however, such mistakes are practically unavoidable.

Federal Rule of Evidence (FRE) 502 was enacted in 2008 in an attempt to combat the issue of inevitable human error and the costs associated with parties’ efforts to avoid it.  FRE 502(d) allows parties to request the court to grant an order stipulating that a disclosure of privileged material does not waive any claims of privilege with respect to those documents.  If the court agrees to enter the order, it is controlling on third parties and in any other federal or state proceeding.

FRE 502(d) has led to the possibility of “quick peek” agreements where the parties give over all or a portion of their documents to opposing counsel without any privilege review whatsoever so that the recipient can identify which material he would like to retain.  The recipient, in turn, agrees not to assert a waiver claim on any document that the producing party intends to withhold from the requested documents as privileged.  These arrangements can dramatically ease the temporal and financial burdens of conducting a privilege review because they allow the producing party to focus only on those documents desired by the recipient while at the same time preserving their right to claim privilege on such documents. (more…)



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