CERTIORARI DENIED
14-622
KURETSKI, PETER, ET UX. V. CIR
Peter Kuretski et ux. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (May 18, 2015 – Certiorari Denied - United States Supreme Court).
Précis: Kuretski et al. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Service (June 20, 2014 – 2014 #13-1090) was a decision of The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (the “DC Circuit”) where taxpayers did not pay their taxes and were eventually assessed by the IRS. After losing their case before the USTC, the taxpayers sought to vacate the decision on the grounds that the power of the President to remove a USTC judge “for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office” violated the constitutional separation of powers and rendered the USTC decision a nullity.
This removal power, which has never actually been used, is a relic of the day when the US Tax Court was known as the “Board of Tax Appeals” and was unquestionably an organ of the executive rather than the judicial branch of government. As documented in
Kuretski, the Board of Tax Appeals was renamed the “Tax Court of the United States” in 1942, and then reconstituted in 1969 as a “court of record” “under Article I of the Constitution of the United States”. Throughout the evolution, however, the President’s removal power remained untouched.
Ultimately, in its decision issued June 20, 2014, the DC Circuit held that the USTC, notwithstanding its name and the fact that it exercises “judicial powers”, is not an organ of the United States judiciary, but rather one of the executive.
The Kuretski’s applied for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court. On May 18, 2015 the Supreme Court released its decision denying certiorari, effectively bringing this debate to an end.
Thanks to Mike Lubetsky of Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP for his sharp eye in drawing this to my attention.
TAGS: United States Tax Court, Part of Executive - Not Judicial Branch