Bryan Camp has published an article on the TaxProf Blog, titled “Lesson From The Tax Court: The Finality Rule For §7430 Qualified Offers”, which discusses the difficulty of recovering costs and attorneys fees after successful litigation against the IRS. The article begins as follows:
When you litigate against the IRS you may win but not prevail. That is, even though §7430(a) promises that a “prevailing party” can recover costs and attorneys fees, it’s hard to be a “prevailing party” within the meaning of the statute. If the government’s ultimately losing position was substantially justified at the relevant time, the winning taxpayer won’t be a prevailing party. Sometimes that leads to a seemingly strange result that even if the Office of Appeals badly messes up, the taxpayer will not be a prevailing party if Chief Counsel catches the error and promptly concedes. Keith Fogg blogged a good example of this over at Procedurally Taxing last week.
Click here to see the full article: “Lesson From The Tax Court: The Finality Rule For §7430 Qualified Offers”
Posted by Anthony Tran, Associate Editor, Wealth Strategies Journal