- 5 -
constitutional right to a fair trial, specifically, that it
violated his due process right of access to the courts.
Petitioner argued that such fees should be waived in his case
because he was indigent and was prevented from earning money
because of his incarceration.
We concluded in Hadsell I that the Court had no authority to
waive subpoena fees and that petitioner was not denied his
constitutional rights even though the subpoenas were not
enforced. See Hadsell v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1994-198. We
held:
civil litigants * * * before this Court enjoy no
constitutional right to have the Federal Government pay
their litigation expenses, and that the party who
summons a witness is responsible for paying the fees
and mileage to which the witness is entitled under
Rules 147 and 148(c).
Id.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, while not
deciding whether Rule 147 is unconstitutional as applied to
indigent litigants, stated:
Hadsell did not have adequate alternatives for proving
all of his claims. On the one hand, the tax court did
not err by denying witness fees to Zong Gan Yu Hadsell,
because Hadsell could testify as to the date of their
marriage as readily as she could have. Nor did it err
in denying fees to Lai Fong Lee, because her testimony
was not essential to resolve the questions of whether
certain expenses were business deductions or whether
Hadsell had appropriately filed his tax returns. As to
the seized tax records, on the other hand, Hadsell
claims that they alone could substantiate his claim
that he had indeed properly filed tax returns in the
years in question.
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