- 8 -
II. Unreasonable Protraction of Proceeding
Petitioners are not eligible for an award of litigation
costs for any portion of the proceeding that they unreasonably
protracted. Sec. 7430(b)(3). Petitioners did not protract the
proceeding. Petitioners did file numerous motions, but none were
meritless and two were necessitated by respondent's multiple
requests for documentation already in his possession.
III. Reasonable Litigation Costs
Petitioners request an award of $95,513 in litigation costs.
Section 7430 allows petitioners to recover attorney's fees and
court costs if such fees and costs are reasonable. Although
petitioners' attorney's billing statements do not delineate the
precise number of hours related to each of the various issues,
they provide sufficient detail to determine an appropriate award.
Where petitioners' attorney did not allocate his hours and
costs to specific issues, we use an "apportionment percentage" to
determine the number of hours and costs for which petitioners are
entitled to an award. The apportionment percentage is a
fraction: The numerator is the total adjustments relating to the
issues for which respondent was not substantially justified
(i.e., cash contributions of $400,000 and depreciation deductions
of $468,589), and the denominator is the total adjustments
relating to all issues (i.e., $1,624,589). Accordingly,
petitioners are entitled to reimbursement for 53 percent of the
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011