256
Souter, J., dissenting
imposes a general obligation upon all taxpayers to keep records relevant to their liability according to regulations promulgated by the Secretary, 26 U. S. C. § 6001, and, for the most part, the courts have viewed the burden on taxpayers to maintain such records as reasonable and, hence, as the justification for requiring taxpayers to disprove IRS estimates; the taxpayer who fails to attend to § 6001 has only himself to blame. See, e. g., Kikalos v. Commissioner, 190 F. 3d 791, 792, n. 1 (CA7 1999); Cracchiola v. Commissioner, 643 F. 2d 1383, 1385 (CA9 1981); Meneguzzo v. Commissioner, 43 T. C. 824, 831 (1965).4 But the first blush ignores the one feature of § 6001 relevant here. The provision states a single, glaring exception: employers need not keep records "in connection with charged tips" other than "charge receipts, records necessary to comply with section 6053(c), and copies of statements furnished by employees under section 6053(a)." Ibid. Employers are expressly excused from any effort to determine whether employees are properly reporting their tips; the Code tells them that they need not keep the information specific to each employee that would be necessary to determine if any tips fell short of the estimates or outside the wage band.5 Presumably because of this statu-hire reliable people who they can trust to follow the rules." The official transcript records "Laughter." Tr. of Oral Arg. 27.
4 Such is in keeping with the general rule that burdens shift to those with peculiar knowledge of the relevant facts. Campbell v. United States, 365 U. S. 85, 96 (1961) ("[T]he ordinary rule . . . does not place the burden upon a litigant of establishing facts peculiarly within the knowledge of his adversary"); National Communications Assn. v. AT&T Corp., 238 F. 3d 124, 130 (CA2 2001) ("[A]ll else being equal, the burden is better placed on the party with easier access to relevant information"); 9 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2486, p. 290 (J. Chadbourn rev. ed. 1981) ("[T]he burden of proving a fact is said to be put on the party who presumably has peculiar means of knowledge" (emphasis deleted)).
5 The statute refers only to charged tips, rather than cash tips, but the IRS does not dispute that the employer has no obligation to keep any records beyond those specifically required under 26 U. S. C. § 6053, and the IRS's regulations on the subject do not impose any requirements with
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