Opinion
24155-18
11-09-2021
Lawrence Leroy Henry Petitioners v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Respondent
ORDER
David Gustafson Judge
This deficiency case is set for trial at the Court's Washington, D.C., trial session beginning December 13, 2021. Petitioner Lawrence Leroy Henry has filed a motion (Doc. 43) for a continuance; but the Commissioner objects (see Doc. 45). We will deny the motion, and the case will proceed to trial as scheduled.
This case concerns petitioner's income tax liability for the not-very-recent years 2008-2014. Generally speaking, the older the year at issue, the less likely it is that the passage of time will generate more information for use at trial. On the contrary, the more likely it is that documents will scatter, or that memories will fade, or that witnesses will die or otherwise become unavailable. The petition commencing this case was filed almost 3 years ago in December 2018. Experience teaches that whatever could not be located or accomplished in these 3 years is unlikely to turn up in year 4. This case has previously been set for trial and then continued on two occasions (see Docs. 17, 29), and it seems unlikely that the postponement of this current (third) setting and the setting of a fourth would have any significant effect. Fortunately, the parties have not been idle. Rather, four stipulations have been filed (see Docs. 21, 26, 39, 41, containing 46 paragraphs and 125 exhibits), and the parties still have more than four weeks to prepare. We encourage them to do so.
Mr. Henry's motion states that "[t]he grounds for the Motion is that Petitioner wishes to hire an attorney and the attorney needs more time than 30 days". We well understand Mr. Henry's wish to have an attorney and the prospect that an attorney might need more than 30 days to prepare for trial, but the advantage of having counsel has been foreseeable for years, and Mr. Henry offers no justification for failing to hire an attorney before now, and no reason to suppose that he would actually succeed in finding and retaining an attorney if his motion were granted.
Mr. Henry's motion also states that he "wishes to give notice to potential witnesses to validate their Savvy Bill Pay transactions, claimed as an expense of the Petitioner." At this point Mr. Henry has more than a month to serve subpoenas on witnesses. If more than a month were needed, then we note that the Court gave to Mr. Henry notice of the December 13, 2021, trial date on July 15, 2021--five months before the trial. He has had ample opportunity to serve subpoenas.
For these reasons and the reasons stated in the Commissioner's objection, it is
ORDERED that Mr. Henry's motion for a continuance is denied. It is further
ORDERED that the parties shall note their obligations under our standing pretrial order (Doc. 36), pursuant to which (among other things) their pretrial memoranda are due November 22, 2021 (see para. 5(B)), and their unagreed exhibits are due November 29, 2021 (see para. 6(A)).