- 17 - After the settlement, the estate, under the guidance of a new attorney, wishes to advance a theory that the $929,350 was a nontaxable capital contribution--a theory that was not advanced, prior to the settlement, on the estate tax return, by the estate’s accountant or by the estate’s attorney. The estate, on brief, has also provided several legal theories that it believes show it would be successful if the agreed decision were vacated and it were allowed to proceed to trial. In terms of a judgment entered by consent of the parties, “the parties are held to their agreement without regard to whether the judgment is correct on the merits.” Stamm Intl. Corp. v. Commissioner, 90 T.C. 315, 322 (and cases cited therein). We note that in Stamm this Court enforced a settlement of the issues in which the amount of tax had not yet been calculated or reduced to a decision document. In that case, the Government sought to be relieved from the settlement agreement because of its unilateral error about the amount of tax resulting from the settlement agreement. In holding that the Government would not be relieved from its agreement, we explained that the standards for vacating a settlement agreement are “akin to those involved in vacating a judgment entered by consent.” Id. at 322; see also Quinones v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1988-269. (The Government was not relieved from its stipulated decision even though it was believed by the Government that itPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011