Opinion
1719-17 1723-17
03-08-2023
PALMARINI INC., ET AL., Petitioner v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent
ORDER
DAVID GUSTAFSON, JUDGE
We issued our Memorandum Opinion in these consolidated cases on December 7, 2022, as T.C. Memo. 2022-119, deciding some issues in favor of petitioners and some in favor of the Commissioner. On December 9, 2022--almost three months ago--we ordered that the parties should file recomputations of the deficiency amounts pursuant to Rule 155 by March 7, 2023. (See Doc. 72.) The Commissioner submitted his recomputation (Doc. 72) on March 1, 2023, and on our own motion we ordered (see Doc. 74) that petitioners' deadline was extended to March 31, 2023. On March 6, 2023, the Court received from petitioners a letter (dated and postmarked February 27, 2023) that reads as follows:
Dear Tax Court,
We cannot access most of our PDF files for all the years this trial has gone on. Please open all PDF flies so we can access all files from https://dawson.ustaxcourt.gov/ for Docket No. 171917 and Docket No. 1723-17 or email all PDF files to benitopalmarini@aol.com. Please let me know when I can access all my files. Thank you.
We certainly intend that the parties have full access to the Court's electronic record. Because Mr. Palmarini signed up to make his filings electronically, he should have no trouble accessing the entire record; and after consultation with the Court's technical staff, we know of no reason that he should be experiencing any difficulty. We will order a telephone conference with the parties to discuss this situation.
However, we note that for present purposes--the recomputation of the deficiencies under Rule 155--the parties probably do not need access to most of the documents in the record. It may in fact be sufficient that they simply have access to (a) our opinion and (b) the IRS's notices of deficiency (which petitioners attached to the petitions that commenced these cases). The parties might have wanted broader access if they wished to prepare a motion for reconsideration under Rule 161; but such a motion would have been due January 6, 2023, and would now be untimely, and we would not entertain such an untimely motion. Or the parties might want broader access in order to prepare an appeal in these cases; but that would be due only after our entry of decisions in these cases (toward which the Rule 155 process is directed). The recomputation process under Rule 155 is not an opportunity to point out errors in the opinion but rather to compute the deficiency amounts that result from the opinion. Errors in our opinion would be subject to correction on appeal. Thus, we doubt that the parties actually need access to the entire record for the current activity. We urge the parties to focus on the recomputation.
It is
ORDERED that the Chambers Administrator of the judge signing this order shall promptly contact the parties in order to schedule a telephone conference at the earliest opportunity. Because the petitioners' letter seems to imply that petitioners may need more time to perform the recomputation, it is
ORDERED that the Clerk of the Court shall file petitioners' letter as a motion for extension of time and that the motion is granted, in that petitioners shall have until April 17, 2023, to file their recomputation under Rule 155.