Tax Court Judges Named the "In" Non-Article III Judges

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Underneath Their Robes has named Tax Court Judges the "In" non-Article III judges (by way of comparison, Immigration Judges were named "Five Minutes Ago" and Bankruptcy Judges were named "Out"). Why? "Tax court judges can be funny. Who knew?" The evidence: a prior post: "Tax court judges can write witty and amusing opinions, overflowing with literary allusions. (If you are at all familiar with tax court opinions, you know that this definitely qualifies as news.)"

UTR cites Calarco v. Commissioner, T.C. Summary Opinion 2004-94, in which Judge Holmes penned a 29-page homage to literature. The pro se taxpayer claimed to be a playright and deducted over 130k of expenses over a 5-year period with 0 (ZERO) income. Yet Judge Holmes held that the taxpayer conducted his playwriting with an objective of making a profit and thus was not subject to the § 183 hobby loss strictures (but he disallowed most of the claimed expenses). The opening of Judge Holmes' opinion gives a flavor of what is to come:

It is a truth little remarked on by scholars that tax law has been a fount of literature for 5,000 years. The oldest literary work still extant--the Epic of Gilgamesh--is a long narrative of a friendship begun during a protest against government exactions. In more recent times, some of our language’s most notable authors have used fiction to delve into tax policy: consider Shakespeare’s criticism of the supply-side effects of a 16-percent tax rate; Swift’s precocious suggestion of a system of voluntary self-assessment; and Dickens’ trenchant observation on the problems of multijurisdictional taxing coordination....