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We believe that the out-of-pocket costs for mileage and
parking fees incurred by petitioner in order to attend the Court
hearing herein are covered by the term “litigation costs” under
the language of section 7430(c)(1) that applies to Tax Court
litigation. Section 7430(c)(1), defining reasonable litigation
costs, does not contain an exclusive list of items recoverable as
litigation costs, especially in light of the paragraph’s use of
the word “includes”, as opposed to the word “means”.
We summarize our analysis as follows: A majority of courts
interpreting other Federal attorney’s fee award statutes allow
substantiated out-of-pocket costs for postage and delivery and
for mileage and parking fees when incurred by pro se litigants;
section 7430 uses the expansive, nonexclusive word “includes”, as
opposed to “means”, when defining “litigation costs”; and
respondent herein concedes postage and delivery costs to be
recoverable litigation costs under section 7430(c)(1) even when
incurred by pro se taxpayers.13
12(...continued)
Commn., 301 P.2d 862, 863 (Cal. 1956) (“Although ‘includes’ is
ordinarily not a word of limitation, a legislative declaration
that ‘public utility’ includes those performing certain
enumerated services is not a declaration that those performing
other services, not encompassed by the services enumerated, are
public utilities” subject to control and regulation by the Public
Utilities Commission [citations omitted]).
13 We note that there are no Treasury regulations
promulgated specifically under sec. 7430(c)(1) (relating to
litigation costs). There are Treasury regulations promulgated
under sec. 7430(c)(2) (relating to administrative costs), and
they provide (see sec. 301.7430-4(b)(1), Proced. & Admin. Regs.)
an enumeration comparable to the specific enumeration of the
statutory language of sec. 7430(c)(2). After such enumeration,
(continued...)
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