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partnership items with an eye to determining a deficiency for
2000. But does the Code allow this--or must there be some
“matching” of taxable years challenged by an FPAA and supplying
the period to calculate limitations under section 6501(a)?
That is the question to which we now turn.
B. Section 6229 and the Matching of Taxable Years
Kligfeld19 begins by making clear that he is not trying to
get us to overrule Rhone-Poulenc. Instead, he is making a
subtler point--that we need not, and should not, extend Rhone-
Poulenc beyond the situation where the taxable years of a
partnership and its partners overlap. An obvious problem with
this position is that we mentioned nothing about the overlapping
of taxable years in Rhone-Poulenc itself. Because Rhone-Poulenc
involved the characterization of a single transaction between the
partner and partnership, see 114 T.C. at 536, one can infer that
the taxable years involved did overlap. However, we made no
finding--and made no mention--of this fact.
Kligfeld has therefore, we believe, identified a real
distinction between Rhone-Poulenc and his case, and he makes both
textual and policy arguments--including constitutional questions
19 This case is very similar to Bay Way Holdings v.
Commissioner, docket No. 5534-05. Bay Way’s TMP filed a summary
judgment motion very similar to Kligfeld’s, and the Court invited
Bay Way to appear as an amicus curiae on brief and oral argument
of this motion. When we refer to “Kligfeld’s views,” we are
referring as well to the points made by Bay Way’s counsel, Paul
J. Sax.
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