STEVEN YARI, Petitioner v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent
Docket No. 13925-12L.
UNITED STATES TAX COURT
Filed September 15, 2014.
143 T.C. No. 7
Held: We have jurisdiction to consider the penalty.
Steven R. Mather, for petitioner.
Michael W. Tan, for respondent.
OPINION
WHERRY, Judge: This case is before us on a petition for review of a Notice of Determination Concerning Collection Action(s) Under Section 6320 and/or 6330 (notice of determination) sustaining a notice of intent to levy with respect to a penalty assessed for the 2004 tax year.1 The case presents an issue of first impression as to whether
Background
This case was submitted fully stipulated pursuant to Rule 122. The parties’ stipulation of settled issues and stipulation of facts, with accompanying exhibits, are incorporated herein by this reference. At the time he filed his petition, petitioner resided in California.
Petitioner formed Topaz Global Holdings, LLC (Topaz Global), on December 22, 2000. Under the regulations, Topaz Global was a disregarded entity for Federal income tax purposes. See
In 2002 petitioner opened a Roth individual retirement account (Roth IRA) with an initial contribution of $3,000. The Roth IRA acquired all of the Faryar stock for $3,000, making the Roth IRA the sole shareholder of the S corporation.2
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has identified transactions such as the one petitioner engaged in as abusive Roth IRA transactions. Notice 2004-8, 2004-1 C.B. 333. The IRS has also identified these transactions as listed transactions, potentially subjecting taxpayers who did not disclose participation in these transactions on their Federal income tax returns to penalties.
Petitioner and his wife signed and apparently filed a joint 2004 Federal income tax return on October 17, 2005. This return did not disclose petitioner’s participation in the Roth IRA transaction. Respondent audited petitioner’s returns for 2002 and 2003 and, following his marriage in 2004, petitioner and his wife’s returns for 2004 through 2007 and issued notices of deficiency to petitioner for his 2002 and 2003 tax years and to petitioner and his wife for the 2004 through 2007
Petitioner, his wife, and respondent settled these deficiency cases and entered into a closing agreement in 2011. The closing agreement required petitioner to include in his income certain amounts for each of the tax years and provided that petitioner and his wife were not liable for the
During the course of the audit petitioner determined that he had made a substantial error on his 2004 tax return because he incorrectly transferred information from a Schedule K-1, Partner’s Share of Income, Deductions, Credits, etc., to that return. Petitioner and his wife prepared an amended return (first amended return) including $51 of taxable interest, $482,912 of income as determined by respondent, deductions of $1,270,448 claimed on Schedule E,
Petitioner and his wife filed a second amended return for the 2004 tax year during the pendency of the deficiency cases. This second amended return claimed a net operating loss carryback from the 2008 tax year of $2,856,026. On both amended returns petitioner and his wife reported the $482,912 from the management fee transaction as income. The stipulated decision entered by the Court for the 2004 tax year reflected the adjustments made in the first and second amended 2004 tax returns.
Respondent also assessed a
Respondent sent petitioner a final notice of intent to levy on February 9, 2009. Petitioner timely requested a collection due process (CDP) hearing. During the pendency of the hearing on September 27, 2010, Congress amended
Petitioner concedes that the Roth IRA transactions he engaged in were listed transactions under Notice 2004-8, supra, for the purposes of the
Discussion
I. Jurisdiction
The parties assume we have jurisdiction over the penalty issue in this case. But the Court has an independent obligation to determine whether it has jurisdiction over a case, and the parties cannot simply stipulate jurisdiction or
The Tax Court is a court of limited jurisdiction and may exercise jurisdiction only to the extent authorized by Congress. Adkison v. Commissioner, 592 F.3d 1050, 1052 (9th Cir. 2010), aff‘g on other grounds 129 T.C. 97 (2007). But, we “have jurisdiction to determine whether we have jurisdiction.” Smith v. Commissioner, 133 T.C. 424, 426 (2009). In Smith we also held that we did not have jurisdiction to redetermine
II. Standard of Review
Ordinarily, our review of the determinations in a CDP hearing is for abuse of discretion. Sego v. Commissioner, 114 T.C. 604, 610 (2000); Goza v. Commissioner, 114 T.C. 176, 181-182 (2000). But when the underlying tax liability is properly at issue, we review the determination de novo. Sego v. Commissioner, 114 T.C. at 610; Goza v. Commissioner, 114 T.C. at 181-182.
III. 6707A Penalty
The penalty for failing to disclose a listed transaction on a return after enactment of the SBJA is “75 percent of the decrease in tax shown on the return as a result of such transaction (or which would have resulted from such transaction if such transaction were respected for Federal [income] tax purposes).”
The starting point for interpreting a statute is its plain and ordinary meaning unless such an interpretation “would produce absurd or unreasonable results”. Union Carbide Corp. v. Commissioner, 110 T.C. 375, 384 (1998). Undefined words take their “ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.” Hewlett-Packard Co. & Consol. Subs. v. Commissioner, 139 T.C. 255, 264 (2012). We interpret statutes “‘in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory
Petitioner urges us to interpret the statute as calculating the penalty using the tax savings produced by the listed transactions. He says we should ignore the tax reported on the return with respect to which he was required to report the listed transaction. Instead, petitioner asks us to focus on the returns prepared years after the reporting obligation arose. He urges us to look at the plain language of the statute, its place in the statutory scheme, and to the legislative history. Respondent, on the other hand, says that the plain meaning of the statute does not
We think the statute is clear and unambiguous: The penalty is calculated with reference to the “tax shown on the return”.
Petitioner also contends that the legislative history supports his position, but he fails to point to any actual legislative history. In any event, the documentary evidence referencing the penalty provision does not support petitioner’s position. Congress initially enacted
Unfortunately, no direct legislative history exists to explain the change. What we do have is the rationale behind an almost identical amendment included in a bill that never became law.6 H.R. 4849, 111th Cong., sec. 111 (2010). The House passed H.R. 4849 partly out of concern for the potential inequities an inflexible penalty may create. H.R. Rept. No. 111-447, supra at 15. Congress had heard from the National Taxpayer Advocate that the potential magnitude of the penalties had an overly harsh impact on individuals and small businesses. Id. at 15-16. The tax advisers may not have told these taxpayers of the reporting obligation, and the penalties, for an individual conducting business through an S corporation, could reach $300,000 per year for a listed transaction that yielded little or no tax benefit. See National Taxpayer Advocate, 2008 Annual Report to Congress (Vol. One), at 342-343, 419-421 (2008); see also
Transactions that span multiple tax years magnify the effect as the reporting obligation exists for each return. National Taxpayer Advocate, 2008 Annual Report to Congress (Vol. One), at 420 (2008). The House Ways and Means Committee explained that the new penalty calculation would “provide a mechanism for establishing a penalty amount that will be proportionate to the misconduct to be penalized, without discouraging compliance with the requirement to disclose reportable transactions.” H.R. Rept. No. 111-447, supra at 16.
Petitioner believes other legislative history inextricably links the penalty calculation to the tax savings. He points to the Joint Committee on Taxation’s general explanation, also known as the Blue Book, to bolster his position. See Staff of J. Comm. on Taxation, General Explanation of Tax Legislation Enacted in the 111th Congress, at 476-480 (J. Comm. Print 2011). The Joint Committee explained that Congress desired to spare small businesses and individuals “unconscionable hardship * * * as a result of the magnitude of the penalty” where the penalty “exceed[ed] the tax savings claimed on these returns”. Id. at 478. Contrary to petitioner’s position, the Blue Books are not legislative history,
It is clear that in the earlier bill Congress intended to blunt the effect of
We note also
Congress obviously knows how to link a penalty or an addition to tax to the tax required to be shown on the return and has done so. Consequently, the fact that it did not do so in
The Court has considered all of petitioner’s contentions, argument, requests, and statements. To the extent not discussed herein, we conclude that they are moot, irrelevant, or without merit. To reflect the foregoing,
Decision will be entered
for respondent.
