Chan v. Comm'r of Internal Revenue

Full title: PAMELA CHAN, Petitioner v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent

Court: United States Tax Court

Date published: Feb 28, 2023

No. 9061-19 (U.S.T.C. Feb. 28, 2023)

Opinion

9061-19

02-28-2023

PAMELA CHAN, Petitioner v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent

Mark V. Holmes, Judge.

ORDER

Mark V. Holmes, Judge.

This case was on the Court's October 19, 2020 trial calendar for New York City and began with a missing return. Progress was very slow, although the parties did seem to reach a settlement. Ms. Chan didn't sign the stipulated decision despite her promise to do so, however, and then did not respond to our attempts to contact her. We finally issued an order to show cause by November 4 why we shouldn't dismiss the case for failure to properly prosecute. She did not file a response. We knew that she had not completely disappeared -- she had after all negotiated a much lower deficiency with respondent's counsel. We therefore ordered the Commissioner to tell us what that lower amount was, which he did in a timely way and without objection to the entry of decision in that lower amount. Just as we were about to enter that decision Ms. Chan again contacted the Court.

We finally spoke with the parties on February 8. The gist of the problem is that Ms. Chan believes she has an overpayment from her 2013 tax year that would reduce or perhaps eliminate her tax bill for her 2014 tax year. We explained that our jurisdiction (our power to decide) is limited to her 2014 tax year -- and both parties agree that they have settled (mostly in Ms. Chan's favor) their disputes about that tax year. This means that they can agree on the amount of the "deficiency" for that year, even if not the language of a "decision" that might or might not reflect the overpayment of her 2013 tax bill that Ms. Chan claims. Ms. Chan promised to retrieve and send to respondent's counsel copies of her signed returns for 2013 - 2015; respondent promised to draft a stipulation agreeing to a deficiency for the 2014 tax year for her to review and sign. We stressed again that a return requires a signature; she expressly stated that she understood and would deliver what she had to respondent within two weeks.

To see if this happened, it is

ORDERED that on or before March 3, 2023 the parties shall submit settlement documents or respondent shall file a status report describing whether Ms. Chan has produced the missing signed returns.