- 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.Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Next
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