- 276 - in the Tax Court. More specifically, the Court of Appeals concluded: When a deficiency was assessed, and Toscano petitioned the Tax Court for redetermination, he carried the fraud into the Tax Court. Thus he was continuing to defraud the Commissioner, and he was continuing to attempt to subject Miss Zelasko to a liability that was not hers. But he was doing more; he was also perpetrating a fraud upon the Tax Court, which culminated in a determination of joint deficiencies against Miss Zelasko as well as himself. This, we think, was as much a fraud on the court as was the use of the spurious article in the Court of Appeals in Hazel-Atlas. Id. at 935. In Abatti v. Commissioner, 859 F.2d 115 (9th Cir. 1988), affg. 86 T.C. 1319 (1986), the taxpayers argued that the Tax Court had erred in failing to vacate final decisions against them that were consistent with their agreements to be bound by certain test cases. In particular, after the Tax Court had granted summary judgment in favor of the Commissioner in the test cases, decisions were entered against the taxpayers in both the test cases and the piggyback cases. Although two test case taxpayers and a number of the taxpayers who had signed piggyback agreements filed timely appeals and persuaded the Court of Appeals to reverse the Tax Court's decisions, the remaining taxpayers in the test cases and piggyback cases did not file appeals. Following the remand of the appealed cases to the Tax Court for further proceedings, the taxpayers who had not filed appeals argued unsuccessfully in the Tax Court that the otherwise final decisions entered against them should be vacated pursuant toPage: Previous 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011