Supreme Court of the United States · Official docket →

Maxcrest Limited v. United States

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, No. 16-16587 · judgment November 20, 2017

Certiorari denied · May 14, 2018

Pre-decision estimate: 3% cert probability

Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.

Questions presented

Federal law authorizes the IRS to issue summonses for civil tax investigations. These summonses are enforceable only if the IRS demonstrates its “good faith in issuing” them. E.g., United States v. Clarke, 134 S. Ct. 2361, 2365 (2014). As part of determining the IRS’ good faith, “the taxpayer is entitled to examine an IRS agent when he can point to specific facts or circumstances plausibly raising an inference of bad faith.” Id. at 2367. The questions presented are:

When the IRS withdraws a summons and then reissues it, can courts consider the circumstances surrounding the withdrawn summons in determining whether the taxpayer in a summons enforcement proceeding plausibly raised an inference of bad faith?
Is a summons enforceable, no matter how egregious the IRS’ misconduct, if the taxpayer was not prejudiced by the misconduct?

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Thomas W. Ostrander
Duane Morris LLP

For respondent
Noel John Francisco
Jones Day

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Proceedings

May 14 2018
Petition DENIED.
Apr 18 2018
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 5/10/2018.
Apr 12 2018
Waiver of right of respondent United States to respond filed.
Mar 27 2018
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due April 30, 2018)