Supreme Court Report

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: 5% cert probability

Before the decision, modestly above the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a circuit split argued in the petition and a Ninth Circuit decision below.

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:

  1. When the IRS withdraws a summons and then reissues it, can courts consider the circumstances surrounding the withdrawn summons in determining whether the taxpayer in a summons enforcement proceeding plausibly raised an inference of bad faith?

  2. 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

Subject area
Federal Taxation (estimated from the questions presented, in the Supreme Court Database’s categories)

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Order
Order list, May 14, 2018 · Certiorari denied

Proceedings

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