- 9 - treating petitioner’s and Mr. Foy’s investments in SGE 1984-3 as joint investments, allocating 50 percent of the SGE 1984-3 items to petitioner, and adjusting the allocation, as required by section 6015(d)(3)(B), for the tax benefit that petitioner’s share of the partnership items provided to Mr. Foy. In her motion, petitioner asserted that she met all of the requirements under section 7430 to recover litigation costs in the amount of $11,354.04. The administrative and litigation costs claimed in the motion were calculated using an hourly rate of $195 for two of petitioner’s attorneys and included a claim of $5,916.20 for petitioner’s alleged share of attorney’s fees (the group fees) that petitioner’s attorneys had charged to two groups of similarly situated Hoyt investor clients with pending section 6015 claims. In support of the motion, petitioner’s counsel attached billing records for petitioner’s account, dated September 10, 2002, to March 31, 2004, that described in detail the attorney’s fees and costs petitioner incurred individually and contained generic entries6 denoting monthly charges to petitioner’s account for her alleged share of the group fees. Petitioner alleged that the group fees were reasonable and that 6Although petitioner agrees that the fee summary for her account attached to the motion describes her share of the “Group Innocent Spouse fees” as “flat” fees, petitioner contends that the flat fee reference is simply the way in which the Pearson- Merriam (petitioner’s attorneys’ law firm) billing program describes sum certain fees. Petitioner’s representation is supported by a declaration of petitioner’s counsel.Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011