Mason v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 14496
| Decision Date | 12 February 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 14496,14497.,14496 |
| Citation | 210 F.2d 388 |
| Parties | MASON v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE (two cases). |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Samuel E. Ziegler, Dallas, Tex., for petitioner.
Charles W. Davis, Ch. Cnsl. Bur. Int. Rev., Rollin H. Transue, Sp. Atty., Ellis N. Slack, Sp. Asst. to Atty. Gen., H. Brian Holland, Asst. Atty. Gen., Louise Foster, Sp. Asst. to Atty. Gen., Melva M. Graney, Sp. Asst. to Atty. Gen., Washington, D. C., for respondent.
Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and HOLMES and RIVES, Circuit Judges.
These appeals, consolidated for briefing and argument, are taken from orders of the Tax Court which granted, without opinion, the commissioner's motions1 to dismiss, for want of jurisdiction, petitions2 taxpayers had filed for a redetermination of the deficiencies, set forth in his jeopardy assessments of March 14, 1952, and mailed to taxpayers' attorney May 26, 1952.
As the taxpayers state the question for decision, it is whether the Commissioner of Internal Revenue can, by the simple expedient of (1) issuing jeopardy assessments and (b) failing to comply with the spirit and exact requirements of the law, take away the taxpayers' legal right to be heard in the Tax Court, all because a cashier's check was deposited with the properly authorized Collector of Internal Revenue for the sole and only purpose of removing and cancelling the tax liens imposed.
As the commissioner states it more briefly and, we think, more precisely, the question for decision is whether the Tax Court was in error in dismissing these cases for lack of jurisdiction.
The gravamen of taxpayers' attack on the orders appealed from is that the proceedings and action of the Commissioner, in issuing jeopardy assessments and in failing and refusing thereafter to issue statutory notices of deficiency under Section 273(b)3 of the Internal Revenue Code was a failure to perform his duty and an abusive exercise of his powers, and that such failure and refusal on his part ought not to result, as here, in depriving the taxpayers of their right to have their tax liability determined in and by the Tax Court.
The substance of the commissioner's defense of the orders is that whatever may be the effect in law upon the jeopardy assessments of the failure of the commissioner to follow them up with the sixty day notices of deficiency as required by Section 273(b) or whatever other and different rights and remedies may flow to the taxpayers because of such failure, Cf. Maxwell v. Campbell, 5 Cir., 205 F.2d 461, that failure cannot confer jurisdiction on the Tax Court to entertain taxpayers' petitions for relief, absent the notices required by Section 273(b) if notices have not been mailed under Section 272(a).4
We agree with the commissioner that this is so and that, since it is, the Tax Court had no alternative, upon the showing made in this record, to dismissing the petition for want of jurisdiction. None of the cases cited by the taxpayers, including McConkey v. Commissioner, 4 Cir., 199 F.2d 892, hold to the contrary of this view, indeed they affirm its correctness.
The orders appealed from were correctly entered. The petitions to review them are denied.
1 In L. K. Mason's case the ground of the motion was that the appeal (to the tax court) was not taken from a statutory notice of deficiency as required by Section 273(b) of the Internal Revenue Code. In Floy Mason's case it was that the appeal is from notice of tax lien under Internal Revenue Laws dated March 14, 1952.
2 The...
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Laing v. United States United States v. Hall
...have been described as " 'tickets to the tax court.' " Corbett v. Frank, 293 F.2d 501, 502 (CA9 1961). See Mason v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 210 F.2d 388 (CA5 1954). But this lack of access to the Tax Court by the taxpayer who finds himself in a terminated taxable period situation ......
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Cohen v. United States
...to start the time running within which the taxpayer can petition the Board of Tax Appeals and to limit that time. (cf. Mason v. Commissioner, 5 Cir., 1954, 210 F.2d 388) If we were of the opinion (which we are not) that the deficiency letters for the years 1945-48 were improperly addressed,......
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Clark v. Campbell
...assessment has been described as '(a) ticket to the tax court.' Corbett v. Frank, 9 Cir., 1961, 293 F.2d 501, 502. See Mason v. Commissioner, 5 Cir., 1954, 210 F.2d 388. 26 The Government argues that the liability created when a tax period is terminated pursuant to 6851 and a tax is assesse......
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Schreck v. United States
...this fate is that the deficiency notice is a jurisdictional prerequisite to adjudication in the Tax Court, Mason v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 210 F.2d 388 (5th Cir. 1954); it is, as the Ninth Circuit has pointed out, a "ticket to the tax court," see Corbett v. Frank, 293 F. 2d 501, ......