Opinion
14619-10 7527-12 9922-12 30196-14 14687-10 9921-12 9977-12 31483-15
07-10-2023
ERNEST S. RYDER & ASSOCIATES, INC., APLC, ET AL., Petitioners, v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent
ORDER
MARK V. HOLMES JUDGE.
The Court released its opinion in these cases back in 2021. T.C. Memo. 2021-88. Computations proved exceptionally complex, so we didn't enter decisions in them until February of this year. Interplay with related cases that the parties settled, as well as numerous issues that themselves led or might or have led to alternative holdings and findings meant that respondent would have to administratively abate some assessments against some of the taxpayers to avoid collecting the same tax multiple times.
There was in addition the problem of redacting the record -- itself extraordinarily large at more than 8 million pages, some of which contains confidential or privileged information of little relevance to how the cases turned out. Large parts of the enormous record in these cases remain sealed. As we stated at the end of trial back in 2016, the public interest will at some point require the parties to prepare a redacted version of the record.
We thought these problems could be worked out in the 90 days that the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure gave to the parties to file a notice of appeal.
That turned out to be unduly optimistic. Petitioners filed notices of appeal within 90 days of the decisions' entry, but also moved for leave to move to vacate those decisions.
We thus have a tangle. The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure provide that the usual 90-day period for appealing Tax Court decisions does not even begin to run until we rule on a motion to vacate a decision that is timely filed under our Rules. Our Rules give parties only 30 days to move to vacate decisions, but we routinely grant motions for leave to file motions to vacate in the 31-90 days after decision when our decisions have not yet become final and unappealable. As a matter of long-followed custom we regard such motions as making the underlying motion to vacate "timely" in that we rule on such motions to vacate on their merits and not because we've lost jurisdiction to do so.
We spoke with the parties yesterday to discuss these issues. Respondent does not oppose granting petitioners' motion for leave to file their motions to vacate. The Court will do so, but then intends not to rule on the underlying motion to vacate until the questions of how to administratively abate duplicative assessments and redact the record are resolved. Our intent is not to affect petitioners' right to appeal, and we make no analysis of the effect of our granting the motion for leave to file a motion to vacate on the timeliness of the existing notices of appeal.
It is simply
ORDERED that petitioners' May 15, 2023 motion for leave to file out of time a motion to vacate is granted.