DIVERSIFIED GROUP, INC. et al., Plaintiffs, v. The UNITED STATES, Defendant.
No. 14-627T
United States Court of Federal Claims.
Filed: September 29, 2015
123 Fed. Cl. 442
SWEENEY, Judge
Sarah S. Marshall, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for defendant.
RCFC 12(b)(1); Subject Matter Jurisdiction; Tax Shelter; Full Payment Rule; Penalty;
SWEENEY, Judge
Before the court is defendant‘s motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Plaintiffs, James Haber and his company, Diversified Group, Inc. (“DGI“), seek a refund of their partial payment of a federal tax penalty, which the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS” or “Service“) assessed because of plaintiffs’ failure to register their tax shelter, as required by the pertinent statute,
I. BACKGROUND
DGI is a boutique merchant banking firm, and Mr. Haber is its president. Between 1999 and 2002, DGI created a tax shelter in
A. The OPS Transaction Involving Mr. Kotite
On November 10, 2000, DGI oversaw some business deals into which a limited liability company wholly owned by Mr. Kotite (“Kotite LLC“) entered. The Kotite LLC purchased a long option from, and also issued a short option to, Lehman Brothers Commercial Corporation (“Lehman“). According to the terms of the long option, the Kotite LLC paid Lehman $1,750,000 in exchange for a payoff. The terms of the short option consisted of Lehman paying the Kotite LLC $1,715,000 in exchange for a payoff. The options would expire on December 15, 2000. The Kotite LLC paid Lehman only $35,000, the amount that Mr. Kotite had previously contributed to the Kotite LLC. Before the options expired, Mr. Kotite “assigned the sole membership interest in the [Kotite] LLC to Hanover North Fund LLC (“Hanover“) in exchange for a pro-rata membership interest in Hanover.” Compl. ¶ 39. Then, on December 14, 2000, Mr. Kotite resigned as a member of Hanover and sold his interest in the company, for which he received payment in Canadian dollars. He later sold the Canadian dollars for United States dollars, taking a loss as a result of that transaction because, at that time, the exchange rate for Canadian dollars to United States dollars was less favorable. On his 2000 federal income tax return, Mr. Kotite represented that his basis in his interest in Hanover was increased by the $1,750,000 long option, without accounting for the reduction by the short option premium. He further represented that upon selling his member interest in Hanover, he received foreign currency “whose cumulative basis equaled his outside basis in Hanover“; he thus claimed a loss with respect to selling his foreign currency for United States dollars. Id. ¶ 42.
B. The FDIS Transaction Involving Mr. Dziedzic
On November 9, 2001, DGI oversaw certain business deals into which SJD Trading LLC (“SJD Trading“) entered. SJD Trading was wholly owned by Mr. Dziedzic, which he had capitalized with $15,000. SJD Trading purchased a long option from Refco Capital Markets, Ltd. (“Refco“), and issued a short option to Refco. Under the terms of the long option, SJD Trading paid Refco “a $1.5 million premium in exchange for a payoff of $5,009,024.” Id. ¶ 45. Under the terms of the short option, Refco paid SJD Trading “a $1,485,000 premium in exchange for a payoff of $4,970,951.” Id. ¶ 46. Before
C. Plaintiffs’ IRS Audit and Resulting Penalty
On or about March 14, 2002, the IRS notified DGI that, pursuant to
Ultimately, on May 9, 2013, nine years after Mr. Haber received notice from the Service that the scope of the penalty audit had been expanded to include him, the IRS sent to each plaintiff a nearly identical Notice of Proposed Adjustment (“NOPA“), indicating a $42,109,483 total penalty for failure to register the tax shelter. This penalty was the result of adding a $24,868,451 penalty for the transactions that composed plaintiffs’ OPS, and a $17,241,032 penalty for the transactions that constituted plaintiffs’ FDIS. Pls.’ Resp. Ex. 1 at 21. On or about December 16, 2013, the IRS sent to each plaintiff a revised NOPA and two NOPA schedules reflecting the same total penalty of $42,109,483. A cover letter accompanied each of the two NOPA schedules. Each letter indicated that the taxpayer had thirty days to request a conference with the IRS. Neither plaintiff requested a conference.
Subsequently, on or about January 16, 2014, the IRS sent plaintiffs a letter with an updated calculation of the penalty. Pls.’ Resp. Ex. 4 at 60. In the letter, the IRS acknowledged that of the original $42,109,483 penalty, $17,188,579 had been “[p]aid by [o]thers,” reduced the net unpaid penalty amount to $24,920,904 (“$24.9 million“), and advised that plaintiffs were “joint[ly] and several[ly] liab[le]” for the penalty. Id. The penalty assessed reflected “1 percent of the aggregate amount invested in [the] tax shelter” by plaintiffs’ clients. Pls.’ Resp. Ex. 1 at 49. The IRS provided plaintiffs with a breakdown of its calculation of the $24.9 million penalty. Specifically, the IRS supplied plaintiffs with charts that listed each individual client‘s aggregate investment in the tax shelter, the calculation of one percent of each separate aggregate investment, and the combined total of the latter, which constituted the penalty.2 Id. at 55; Pls.’ Resp. Ex. 2 at 1–2, 43–45.
Concurrently with these payments, each plaintiff filed a refund claim with the IRS. The IRS denied these refund claims in separate letters dated April 10, 2014, advising plaintiffs that the “penalty is not assessed on each individual transaction, but instead assessed based on the aggregate amount invested in the tax shelter, or the aggregate amount of fees paid to promoters of the tax shelter.... Thus, [the] penalties are non-divisible and must be paid in full before commencing a refund suit.”3 Id. ¶ 28.
II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY
On July 18, 2014, plaintiffs filed suit in the United States Court of Federal Claims (“Court of Federal Claims“). Plaintiffs claim that they are entitled to a refund of federal income tax penalties erroneously and illegally assessed and collected from them, along with interest assessed on the penalty amount collected, plus overpayment interest. Alternatively, plaintiffs argue, even if a penalty is warranted, it was not properly calculated. Finally, plaintiffs request abatement of any uncollected assessments of the penalty, which is tantamount to a request for the court to enjoin the IRS‘s collection efforts against plaintiffs. Defendant filed a motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) of the Rules of the United States Court of Federal Claims (“RCFC“) based upon plaintiffs’ failure to satisfy the full payment rule, the predicate to invoking this court‘s jurisdiction. Defendant‘s motion has been fully briefed, and oral argument was held on July 29, 2015.
III. LEGAL STANDARDS
A. RCFC 12(b)(1)
Defendant moves to dismiss plaintiff‘s complaint pursuant to RCFC 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. When resolving an RCFC 12(b)(1) motion, the court “must accept as true all undisputed facts asserted in the plaintiff‘s complaint and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff.” Trusted Integration, Inc. v. United States, 659 F.3d 1159, 1163 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (citing Henke v. United States, 60 F.3d 795, 797 (Fed. Cir. 1995)). If the court determines that the factual allegations set forth in the complaint are insufficient to resolve the jurisdictional dispute, then it may consider relevant evidence beyond the pleadings. See Fisher v. United States, 402 F.3d 1167, 1181–83 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (panel portion).
Whether the court has jurisdiction to decide the merits of a case is a threshold matter. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env‘t, 523 U.S. 83, 94–95 (1998). “Without jurisdiction the court cannot proceed at all in any cause. Jurisdiction is power to declare the law, and when it ceases to exist, the only function remaining to the court is that of announcing the fact and dismissing the cause.” Ex parte McCardle, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 506, 514 (1868). The parties, or the court sua sponte, may challenge the existence of subject matter jurisdiction at any time. Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 506 (2006). The
B. Jurisdiction
The Court of Federal Claims is a court of limited jurisdiction. Jentoft v. United States, 450 F.3d 1342, 1349 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (citing United States v. King, 395 U.S. 1, 3 (1969)). The scope of this court‘s jurisdiction to entertain claims and grant relief depends upon the extent to which the United States has waived its sovereign immunity. King, 395 U.S. at 4. In “construing a statute waiving the sovereign immunity of the United States, great care must be taken not to expand liability beyond that which was explicitly consented to by Congress.” Fid. Constr. Co. v. United States, 700 F.2d 1379, 1387 (Fed. Cir. 1983). A waiver of sovereign immunity “cannot be implied but must be unequivocally expressed.” King, 395 U.S. at 4. Unless Congress consents to a cause of action against the United States, “there is no jurisdiction in the Court of Claims more than in any other court to entertain suits against the United States.” United States v. Sherwood, 312 U.S. 584, 587–88 (1941).
The Tucker Act confers upon the Court of Federal Claims jurisdiction to “render judgment upon any claim against the United States founded either upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress or any regulation of an executive department, or upon any express or implied contract with the United States, or for liquidated or unliquidated damages in cases not sounding in tort.”
The Court of Federal Claims “may not entertain claims outside this specific jurisdictional authority.” Adams v. United States, 20 Cl. Ct. 132, 135 (1990). With the exception of limited situations not relevant in this case, see, e.g.,
C. Tax Refund Suits
The Tucker Act provides this court with jurisdiction over tax refund suits. Ontario Power Generation v. United States, 369 F.3d 1298, 1301 (Fed. Cir. 2004); Shore v. United States, 9 F.3d 1524, 1525 (Fed. Cir. 1993); Allison v. United States, 80 Fed. Cl. 568, 580–81 (2008). When a taxpayer is assessed a tax deficiency, he may challenge that assessment in one of two ways. Smith v. United States, 495 Fed. App‘x 44, 48 (Fed. Cir. 2012); Ishler v. United States, 115 Fed. Cl. 530, 536 (2014). The first is to pay the tax, request a refund from the IRS, and then file a refund suit in the Court of Federal Claims or in a federal district court.
If the taxpayer chooses the first option and files suit in the Court of Federal Claims, then pursuant to
IV. DISCUSSION
In their complaint, plaintiffs allege that the IRS assessed a penalty against them pursuant to
Defendant moves to dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. According to defendant, because plaintiffs have not made full payment of the penalty assessed against them for failure to register the tax shelter, a condition precedent to maintaining a tax refund action in this court, this court is precluded from exercising its jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ complaint other than to dismiss it on RCFC 12(b)(1) grounds. Def.‘s Mot. 5.
Plaintiffs dispute the basis of defendant‘s motion by countering that they have satisfied the full payment rule. Pls.’ Resp. 4. In support of their jurisdictional argument, plaintiffs advance a novel theory, one that raises an issue of first impression, and that, if accepted, would carve out a new judicially created exception to the rule requiring full payment of the tax owed prior to filing suit in this court. Although plaintiffs readily acknowledge that they were assessed a $24.9 million penalty for failure to register the tax shelter, id. at 3, they argue that it is not necessary for them to pay the full amount of the penalty prior to bringing suit in this court, id. at 22–23. Rather, plaintiffs contend, the court‘s sole focus should be each of the 193 individual transactions within the tax shelter. Id. at 20–23. To accomplish participation in their tax shelter, plaintiffs guided 193 clients through multiple steps involving the buying, selling, or otherwise transferring of assets, in order to achieve the desired tax loss. According to plaintiffs’ theory, the $24.9 million penalty assessed against them for failure to register their tax shelter is divisible, by parsing out each of the 193 clients’ individual transactions.4 Id. at 1, 4, 19–20, 22–23; Oral Argument of Mr. Taylor at 1:25:47–1:26:04, 1:50:08, 2:03:08, 2:04:14. Consequently, plaintiffs contend, paying the discrete penalty assessed on a single transaction is sufficient to satisfy the full payment rule. Pls.’ Resp. 1, 4, 9; Oral Argument of Mr. Taylor at 1:25:47–1:26:04, 1:50:54, 1:53:37, 1:54:45. As a result, because Mr. Haber paid $18,310, or one percent of Mr. Kotite‘s aggregate investment in the tax shelter, and DGI paid $15,450, or one percent of Mr. Dziedzic‘s aggregate investment in the tax shelter, plaintiffs argue that they have satisfied the full payment rule, thereby establishing this court‘s jurisdiction. Pls.’ Resp. 1, 9.
In ruling on defendant‘s motion, plaintiffs urge the court to take a broad approach to its jurisdictional analysis, placing heavy reliance on the decisions in Noske v. United States, 911 F.2d 133 (8th Cir. 1990), and Humphrey v. United States, 854 F. Supp. 2d 1301 (N.D. Ga. 2011), to advance their divisibility argument. Pls.’ Resp. 18–19; Oral Argument of Mr. Taylor at 1:28:54, 1:29:40. Specifically, plaintiffs argue that Humphrey is analogous to their circumstances because the court in that case found that the penalty for promoting abusive tax shelters under
In response, defendant contends that plaintiffs’ divisibility theory is incorrect because it fails to comprehend the basis for the imposition of the penalty. Def.‘s Mot. 5. Defendant explains that this case turns on a single key fact—that the $24.9 million penalty arose as a result of plaintiffs’ failure to register the tax shelter. Def.‘s Reply 3, 5–7. Defendant contends, therefore, that the penalty is not divisible among plaintiffs’ 193 clients or the corresponding number of transactions that constitute the tax shelter. Id. Accordingly, defendant argues, the penalty
The threshold issue before the court is whether plaintiffs can establish this court‘s jurisdiction. Plaintiffs’ jurisdictional theory can prevail only if the court accepts their argument that engrafts a new exception onto the full payment rule. The plain language of two pertinent statutes,
Next, the court examines
[i]f a person who is required to register a tax shelter under
section 6111(a) —(A) fails to register such tax shelter on or before the date described in
section 6111(a)(1) , or(B) files false or incomplete information with the Secretary [of the United States Department of the Treasury] with respect to such registration, such person shall pay a penalty with respect to such registration....
In this case, the IRS imposed a penalty against plaintiffs pursuant to
Plaintiffs rely on the exceptions to the Flora full payment rule by advocating that those exceptions apply, by analogy, in this case. Specifically, plaintiffs argue, when certain taxes or penalties are divisible, partial payment is sufficient to satisfy the rule. Pls.’ Resp. 15–16. As examples, plaintiffs cite to the divisibility of excise taxes where a separate tax is assessed for each sale item, id. at 17, and the divisibility of payroll taxes because a separate tax is assessed for each employee, id. at 16–17. Plaintiffs further describe how penalties assessed under
In resolving this question of first impression, the court recognizes that plaintiffs are correct that exceptions exist to the full payment rule; however, none applies to plaintiffs. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit“) has made clear in its binding precedent that “[e]xceptions to the full payment rule have been recognized by the courts only where an assessment covers divisible taxes.” Rocovich v. United States, 933 F.2d 991, 995 (Fed. Cir. 1991). A tax or penalty is divisible when “it represents the aggregate of taxes due on multiple transactions.” Id. Stated otherwise, divisible “taxes or penalties ... are seen as merely the sum of several independent assessments triggered by separate transactions. In such cases, the taxpayer may pay the full amount on one transaction, sue for a refund for that transaction, and have the outcome of this suit determine his liability for all the other, similar transactions.” Korobkin v. United States, 988 F.2d 975, 976 (9th Cir. 1993) (per curiam). Thus, if a tax or penalty is considered divisible, partial payment is sufficient to confer jurisdiction on the court over the refund claim. Rocovich, 933 F.2d at 995; Cencast Serv., L.P. v. United States, 729 F.3d 1352, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (stating that, “where a tax is divisible, the taxpayer may pay the full amount on one transaction, sue for a refund for that transaction, and have the outcome of this suit determine his liability for all the other, similar transactions” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).
There are limited circumstances in which a tax can be considered divisible and thus qualify as an exception to the full payment rule. As noted earlier, one type of divisible tax is an excise tax because it is assessed on a per item basis. An excise tax is “a tax imposed on the manufacture, sale, or use of goods (such as a cigarette tax), or on an occupation or activity (such as a license tax or an attorney occupation fee).” In re DeRoche, 287 F.3d 751, 755 (9th Cir. 2002) (quoting Black‘s Law Dictionary 585 (7th ed. 1999)). “Some examples of excise taxes [include] taxes upon liquors and wines and various manufactured goods which are introduced into commerce.” Bradford v. United States, 532 F. Supp. 292, 293 (D. Colo. 1981). Because they “may be divisible into a tax on each transaction or event,” excise taxes constitute an exception to the full payment rule. Flora, 362 U.S. at 175 n. 37; accord id. at 176 n. 38.
As also identified herein, payroll taxes paid by employers are considered divisible “because they‘re assessed separately for each employee.” Korobkin, 988 F.2d at 976; accord Fid. Bank, N.A. v. United States, 616 F.2d 1181, 1182 n. 1 (10th Cir. 1980); Kaplan v. United States, 115 Fed. Cl. 491, 494 (2014). Penalties imposed for the failure to pay such taxes are “considered a cumulation of separable assessments for each of the employees involved, ... permitting suit after payment of one or more employee‘s taxes.” Fid. Bank, 616 F.2d at 1182 n. 1.
Beyond these judicially created exceptions to the full payment rule, Congress has also allowed for some refund suits to proceed after a plaintiff has made partial payment of certain penalties. For example,
Plaintiffs, however, are not on the same footing as any of the taxpayers described in the exceptions set forth above. The reason is plain: plaintiffs were assessed the $24.9 million penalty for failure to register their tax shelter—a single act. Although
Further, prior to bringing suit before this court, plaintiffs filed an action in the U.S. Tax Court. See Markell, 2014 WL 1910052. The court takes judicial notice of those proceedings because that case provides a detailed example of the way in which plaintiffs created the pathway for their clients to participate in their tax shelter, either by means of an OPS or FDIS plan.7 In the case before the Tax Court, Markell Co., Inc., a corporation managed by Mr. Haber, challenged the income tax deficiency and penalty arising from an OPS plan—the same tax shelter at issue here. In ruling against Mr. Haber, the Tax Court provided the following facts pertinent to its decision:
This case began when the Commissioner found the remains of a corporation on an Indian reservation in an extremely remote corner of Utah. The tribe claimed not to know how the corporation‘s stock had ended up in its hands. And there was little or no money or valuable property left inside the corporate shell.
All signs pointed to the corporation‘s manager, a sophisticated East Coast moneyman, as the key person of interest. And his method was a series of complex transactions that bore a striking resemblance to Son-of-BOSS [which stands for Son-of-Bond and Option Sales Strategy] deals already examined many times before by this Court—but with a corporate-partner twist.
....
The central player in this mystery is James Haber, a CPA and founder of Diversified Group, Inc. (DGI), where he was sole owner, director, president, and CEO. He was also the director of Helios Trading LLC (Helios). Haber is an exceptionally smart man, and exceptionally gifted in designing complex transactions. A decade ago he designed what he thought was a way to use DGI and Helios to solve a very particular tax problem: how to unlock the value lying in C corporations with low basis in capital assets by creating deals that generated enormous capital losses—losses large enough to offset the corporate-level tax on capital gains—and thereby largely eliminate corporate-level taxes. He marketed this plan as the “Option Partnership Strategy” (OPS). The OPS featured a contribution of paired options by a corporation to a limited liability company that was managed by a company of which Haber was president. One part of the pair was a short option, and one a long. The short option, in any reasonable economic view, is a potential liability. But Haber and those who undertook similar deals claimed to adopt the position that the potential liability of the short option did not offset the potential of the long option, and so could be ignored as a matter of tax accounting. That would, in turn, overstate the capital contribution and give the C corporation a tax benefit in the nature of a built-in capital loss on the sale of the C
corporation‘s partnership interest. To realize the benefit, the C corporation would resign from the partnership, take a transferred basis in the securities distributed to it in liquidation of its interest, and subsequently sell those assets at a huge loss—all due to the omission of the short-leg option. Markell‘s brief admits that Haber had considerable experience with the selection, acquisition, and management of European-style digital options. And Haber was a serial dealmaker, who did at least 12 of these deals as the president of DGI and Helios from 2000-2002. But these deals caught the attention of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York—and though Haber has never been indicted or even made a target, he chose to plead the Fifth during the trial of this case.
Markell, 2014 WL 1910052, at *1 (footnotes omitted). After close examination of the facts surrounding the transactions at issue, the Tax Court observed:
This case is another of the Commissioner‘s battles against a tax shelter called Son-of-BOSS. While there are different varieties of Son-of-BOSS deals, what they have in common is the transfer of assets encumbered by significant liabilities to a partnership, with the goal of inflating basis in that partnership.... The liabilities are usually obligations to buy securities, and they are always contingent at the time of transfer. Taxpayers who engage in these deals claim that this allows the partner to ignore those liabilities in computing basis, which allows the partnership to ignore them in computing basis. The result is that the partners will have bases in the partnership high enough to provide for large noneconomic losses on their individual tax returns. At issue here is an “outside basis” Son-of-BOSS deal: the inflated basis is the partner‘s outside basis in the partnership. The version here involves a corporation as the partner, and an intermediary transaction; namely, Markell‘s stock sale immediately followed by an asset sale.
Id. at *4. Ultimately, the Tax Court held:
We find that Markell had no intention to join MC Investments to share in profits and losses from business activities—it left after ten weeks and unwound the only transaction MC Investments ever made. And that transaction was done through MC Investments only to move forward with a tax-avoidance scheme. We find that the character of the resulting tax loss, and not any potential for profit, was the primary consideration Markell had in buying, contributing, and then distributing assets using MC Investments.
As outlined in the Tax Court‘s opinion, Mr. Haber designed the OPS and the FDIS plans, which he marketed through DGI as a tax shelter. In this case, plaintiffs challenge the IRS‘s assessment of a $24.9 million penalty against them for failure to register those plans as a tax shelter. Contrary to plaintiffs’ assertion that the transactions that composed the plans fall into an exception whereby the tax or penalty is divisible, neither Congress nor the courts have determined that registering a tax shelter is susceptible to divisibility. The reason for the declination is clear: the failure to register a tax shelter is not comparable to the failure to pay an excise tax that is assessed on a per item basis for the manufacture, sale, or use of goods. Nor is registering a tax shelter akin to payment of an employee payroll tax. Aiding and abetting an understatement of tax liability under
Moreover, while a penalty assessed pursuant to
[c]ircuits were split over whether the penalty was divisible because of the indeterminate nature of the word “activity,” as used in the statute. Some courts reasoned that “activity” referred to an individual transaction rather than the cumulative tax shelter transactions, and therefore the ... penalty was divisible because it was calculated on a per transaction basis. For example, in Noske, a plaintiff was assessed a $186,000 penalty under section 6700 ($1,000 per 186 transactions), and jurisdiction was appropriate because the plaintiff paid $1,000 before suing, which represented a single portion of her grand penalty assessment.... Other courts differed, and held that “activity” referred to the cumulation of all the transactions, and thus (1) the $1,000 penalty “was a yearly minimum, not a per-transaction minimum,” and (2) all section 6700 penalties were nondivisible because “[l]iability ... based on total yearly volume is the hallmark of a nondivisible assessment.” ... See, e.g., Korobkin, 988 F.2d at 977.
The take away from the pre-1990 cases is that a section 6700 [penalty] was divisible when and because the word “activity” was construed as a single sale or transaction, and nondivisible when and because “activity” was understood as the cumulation of all sales or transactions.
Congress ended the confusion over “activity” by amending section 6700 and clarifying that “activity” refers to an individual sale; and in so doing, Congress returned the penalty to its divisible state. Compare
26 U.S.C. [§] 6700(a) (2011)[,] with26 U.S.C. [§] 6700(a) (1985).
Id. at 1306 (footnotes and citations omitted).
The amended statute requires that a taxpayer promoting an abusive tax shelter “shall pay, with respect to each activity described in paragraph (1), a penalty equal to the $1,000 or, if the person establishes that it is lesser, 100 percent of the gross income derived (or to be derived) by such person from such activity.”
Because the decision in Humphrey concerned the sale or promotion of an abusive tax shelter pursuant to
Similarly, as with Humphrey, plaintiffs’ reliance on Noske is inapposite. In Noske, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, reversed the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota‘s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ complaint. 911 F.2d at 136. Previously, the plaintiffs were assessed a penalty under
Indeed, the tax penalty at issue here is not susceptible to divisibility because a
Nor does the court find persuasive plaintiffs’ argument that the requirement to file a separate form for each transaction within the tax shelter renders the penalty divisible. Specifically,
Finally, the court notes that the exceptions to the “jurisdictional rule for ‘divisible’ assessments” are decidedly “narrow,” and only apply to the limited circumstances described above. Korobkin, 988 F.2d at 976. In Rodewald v. United States, the plaintiff had previously entered into an installment agreement with the IRS to settle his tax liabilities, and after paying only some of the installments, filed a tax refund claim. 231 Ct. Cl. 962 (1982). The United States Court of Claims, whose precedent is binding on this court, in discussing exceptions to the full payment rule and declining to “carve an additional exception,” dismissed the plaintiff‘s tax refund case because he had not fully paid the tax liabilities assessed against him. Id. (discussing exceptions to the full payment rule, including excise and payroll taxes, and dismissing the case).
Based upon the unambiguous language of the pertinent statutes, regulation, and binding precedent, the court rejects plaintiffs’ argument that it should further broaden the divisibility exceptions to the full payment rule. See Rocovich, 933 F.2d at 995 (holding that although Congress enacted some exceptions to the full payment rule, because the plaintiff could “point[] to no authority for making” the specific type of exception that he sought, one could not be created); accord id. (“While the Flora rule may result in economic hardship in some cases, it is Congress’ responsibility to amend the law.“). Accordingly, because plaintiffs have failed to pay the full penalty before bringing suit in this court, and do not satisfy any of the exceptions to the full payment rule, the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over their complaint, and dismisses it pursuant to RCFC 12(b)(1).8 Int‘l Custom Prods., Inc. v. United States, 791 F.3d 1329, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (“The Supreme Court has also held that prepayment of monies owed similarly conditions the government‘s waiver of immu-
V. CONCLUSION
Because plaintiffs have failed to satisfy the full payment rule, the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over their complaint. Accordingly, the court GRANTS defendant‘s RCFC 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss. Plaintiff‘s complaint is DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE. The clerk of the court is directed to enter judgment accordingly.
COSTS TO DEFENDANT.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
MARGARET M. SWEENEY
Judge
Notes
An OPS consists of option deals. “An option is a contract that gives its buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an asset at a predetermined ‘strike’ price at some point in the future.” Markell Co. v. Comm‘r, No. 20551-08, 2014 WL 1910052, at *1 n. 2 (T.C. May 13, 2014). More specifically, “[a] short option gives its buyer a right to sell the asset; a long option gives its buyer a right to buy the asset.” Id. at *1. In this case, plaintiffs marketed to their clients a complex plan involving the purchase and sale of options; overall, this plan was an OPS. When carrying out the commercial dealings that were necessary to effectuate participation in their OPS, plaintiffs “creat[ed] deals generat[ing] enormous capital losses [that] offset the corporate-level tax on capital gains, thereby largely eliminat[ing] corporate-level taxes” for their clients. Id. These transactions “involved the purchase and sale of offsetting foreign currency options (in the form of European style digital options)[,] and the options’ contribution into partnerships formed and managed by Mr. Haber.” Pls.’ Resp. Ex. 1 at 26. Overall, the “OPS [that plaintiffs created] was a carefully designed series of pre-planned steps with the sole goal of generating a tax loss.” Id. Similarly, the FDIS that plaintiffs engaged in “resulted in noneconomic tax losses flowing to the clients in order to offset their taxable income and reduce their income tax liabilities.” Pls.’ Resp. Ex. 2 at 38. The steps that were attendant to participation in the FDIS were similar to those of the OPS, but were more complicated in some respects. Id. at 6. For example, the buying and selling of assets necessary to accomplish participation in the FDIS involved a foreign partner, whereby the majority of the gains went to the foreign partner, while the majority of the losses went to the client, to enable the client to claim a tax loss.
Further, even if plaintiffs had satisfied the full payment rule established in Flora, the court could not grant the injunctive relief requested; namely, to enjoin the collection efforts of the IRS. As described earlier, the court lacks authority to issue an injunction of the type sought by plaintiffs in this case. See Bowen, 487 U.S. at 905 & n. 40; accord