United States DC Circuit

In taxpayer-partnership's appeal from a tax court's decision that it had jurisdiction over several partnership-level determinations regarding the taxpayer and that valuation misstatement penalties applied, the order is affirmed in part where the tax court acted within its jurisdiction when it determined that the taxpayer was not a valid partnership and should be disregarded for tax purposes. However, the order is vacated in part where the partnership's outside basis was an affected item, not a partnership item, and therefore the tax court had no right to determine, or assess penalties based on the conclusion, that the partners' outside bases were zero.

Appellate Information

• Decided 01/13/2010
• Published 01/13/2010

Judges

• Before SENTELLE, Chief Judge, and GRIFFITH and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States DC Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Edward M. Robbins Jr. argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellants., Sheldon M. Kay, Thomas A. Cullinan, and Julie P. Bowling were on the brief for amicus curiae AJF-1, LLC in support of appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Joan I. Oppenheimer, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Gilbert S. Rothenberg, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Richard Farber, Supervisory Attorney. Judith A. Hagley, Attorney, entered an appearance.