JT USA, LP v. Commissioner

771 F.3d 654, 114 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 6608, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 21634
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedNovember 14, 2014
DocketNo. 12-70037
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 771 F.3d 654 (JT USA, LP v. Commissioner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
JT USA, LP v. Commissioner, 771 F.3d 654, 114 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 6608, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 21634 (9th Cir. 2014).

Opinions

Opinion by Judge TROTT; Dissent by Judge CALLAHAN.

OPINION

TROTT, Circuit Judge:

We review de novo the Tax Court’s reading and application of a TEFRA statute 1 in a convoluted action arising from (1) a partnership’s attempted use of a bogus tax shelter to offset capital gains, and (2) the Commissioner of Internal Revenue’s subsequent denial of a $32.5 million “loss” claimed by the partnership to eliminate income tax liability on an asset sale resulting in a $28 million capital gain. The Tax Court ruled that a taxpayer holding both direct and indirect interests in a partnership may elect under 26 U.S.C. § 6223(e)(3)(B) not to be bound by the results of a partnership proceeding — or partnership audit2 — as to some, but not all, of those interests held during the relevant taxable year. In other words, that § 6223(e)(3)(B) permits taxpayers to opt out of the partnership proceeding with respect to their indirect interests but to leave in that proceeding their alleged remaining direct partnership interests. The Commissioner concedes that “[i]f taxpayers’ elections to opt out, but only as indirect partners, are effective, then the assessment of deficiencies flowing from about $36.6 million in adjustments (or on the order of $10 million in tax) is time-barred.” Accordingly, it appears that if the IRS prevails, the taxpayers will be liable for additional taxes. Thus, their claim that this case is now moot for the lack of a controversy is groundless.

We have jurisdiction over this timely appeal pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 7482(a)(1), and we conclude that the Tax Court’s reading of the disputed statute was incorrect.3 We also conclude that the IRS’s sloppy administrative errors, including mailing the wrong form letter to the taxpayers, were not sufficient either to require a different outcome or to stop the IRS from pursuing this matter and its claims. Thus, because we hold that the taxpayers’ disputed elections to opt out were invalid, we remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Background

The facts and circumstances of this case are available in the Tax Court’s decision, [656]*656JT USA LP v. Comm’r, 131 T.C. 59 (2008), and in our previous opinion in Comm’r v. JT USA LP, 630 F.3d 1167, 1169-70 (9th Cir.2011). We attach the Tax Court’s opinion as an appendix and repeat the facts only as necessary to illuminate our decision. For the best “explanation of the statutory scheme for dealing with partnership matters,” we refer the reader to and incorporate Justice Scalia’s opinion in United States v. Woods, — U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 557, 562-63, 187 L.Ed.2d 472 (2013).

26 U.S.C. § 6223(e)(3)(B)

26 U.S.C. § 6223(e)(3)(B), entitled “Notice to Partners of Proceedings,” reads in pertinent part, “In any case to which this subsection applies, if paragraph (2) does not apply, the partner shall be a party to the proceedings unless such partner elects — ... (B) to have the partnership items of the partner for the partnership taxable year to which the proceeding relates treated as nonpartnership items.”

In Carson Harbor Village, Ltd. v. Unocal Corp., 270 F.3d 863, 878 (9th Cir.2001)(quoting Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470, 485, 37 S.Ct. 192, 61 L.Ed. 442 (1917)), we said,

It is elementary that the meaning of a statute must, in the first instance, be sought in the language in which the act is framed, and if that is plain, ... the sole function of the courts is to enforce it according to its terms.
Where the language is plain and admits of no more than one meaning, the duty of interpretation does not arise, and the rules which are to aid doubtful meanings need no discussion.

The statute at the core of this dispute, § 6223(e)(3)(B), provides that a “partner” may elect “to have the partnership items of the partner for the partnership year to which the administrative proceedings relate treated as nonpartnership items.” The statute says “the partner,” not an indirect partner or any other subset of the term “partner” as defined in 26 U.S.C. § 6231(a)(2). Moreover, § 6223(e)(3)(B) allows the partner to have “the partnership items” (plural) of that partner to be treated as nonpartnership items, not some of that partner’s items to be treated as such.

The meaning of this' language is clear and unambiguous, and it means — as the Commissioner argues — that unless a partner elects to have all of his or her partnership items treated as nonpartnership items, the partner cannot elect out of the TEFRA proceeding. See Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Comm’r, 484 F.3d 731, 734 (5th Cir.2007)(“Use of the definitive article ‘the’ in the statute supports a conclusion that there is one overpayment rate for each overpayment situation.”). In the vernacular, § 6223(e)(3)(B) is an all-or-nothing rule, and that ends our primary inquiry.

The Tax Court’s and the taxpayers’ excursions into other sections of TEFRA are irrelevant. All the other TEFRA sections to which the taxpayers refer demonstrate that when Congress chose to differentiate between types of partners, they knew how to do so. As the Supreme Court remarked in Loughrin v. United States, — U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 2384, 2390, 189 L.Ed.2d 411 (2014), ‘We have often noted that when ‘Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another’ — let alone the very next provision — this Court ‘presume[s]’ that Congress intended a different meaning.” Indeed, the absence in § 6223(e)(3)(B) of the language the taxpayers would like us to read into it “provides strong affirmative evidence” that Congress did not intend it to be construed or implemented as the taxpayers wish. United States v. Naftalin, 441 U.S. 768, 774-75, 99 S.Ct. 2077, 60 [657]*657L.Ed.2d 624 (1979). Accordingly, a partner in a TEFRA proceeding such as this is limited under § '6223(e)(3)(B) to a single election: either all in, or all out.

Here, the taxpayers tried to have their cake and eat it too.

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Bluebook (online)
771 F.3d 654, 114 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 6608, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 21634, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jt-usa-lp-v-commissioner-ca9-2014.