Appellants sued New York City and the State, along with a number of city and state officials, challenging a tax scheme that exempted New York City residents from a tax levied on parking services rendered in Manhattan. Appellees subsequently filed a motion to dismiss, arguing, among other things, that comity barred the federal courts from hearing appellants' challenge to the state law. The district court granted the motion and the court affirmed, holding that because New York state courts have the ability to implement a remedy that the federal courts could not, Levin v. Commerce Energy, Inc. counseled in favor of dismissing the complaint pursuant to comity.

Appellant appealed his conviction and sentence on two counts of attempted tax evasion. Appellant argued that the government failed to prove the element of tax loss because it relied upon a flawed calculation under the "cash method of proof" and attributed to appellant $1.9 million of alleged gain when those funds, as a matter of law, belonged to his two corporations. Appellant challenged his sentence to the extent it rested upon the allegedly incorrect calculation of tax loss. The court found no error in the district court's denial of defendant's motions for judgment of acquittal. The court also held that, because a rational trier of fact could find beyond a reasonable doubt a tax was due and owing on $300,000 of income, the court left for another day how best to interpret the dictum in James v. United States. The court affirmed the sentence because the district court made sufficient factual findings at sentencing to support the inclusion of the $1.9 million in the calculation of tax loss.

The company overpaid income tax for certain years. The IRS either refunded the overpayments or applied the overpayments as credits to other tax years or to liabilities for other types of taxes before the company contested a notice of deficiency the IRS issued for the years to which the credits were applied. The company claimed that the IRS did not pay it enough overpayment interest on those overpayments. The Third Circuit vacated the Tax Court ruling that it had subject matter jurisdiction (26 U.S.C. 6512(b)(1) and (3)) over the claim. Interest owed to a taxpayer by the government, is not "a part of, or even related to, a taxpayer's tax liability" and is not "assimilated in treatment to the principal amount of a tax." The Tax Court erred in equating the question of interest with overpayment.

This appeal was the second of two appeals involving the same issue, the first of which was Curry v. Pope County, 2011 Ark. 407. At issue in the appeal was Ark. Const. amend. 79, which prohibits an increase in the assessed value on a principal place of residence after the taxpayer's sixty-fifth birthday unless that taxpayer has made substantial improvements on that residence. Appellant Howard Curry appealed a circuit court's order finding that improvements made to his property prior to his sixty-fifth birthday were "substantial improvements" within the meaning of amendment 79 and that Appellees, the Pope County Equalization Board and the county tax assessor, would be allowed to include these improvements in the assessment of Appellant's property. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the circuit court did not err in labeling the changes Appellant made to his property before he turned age sixty-five as substantial improvements, and (2) the assessor did not err in assessing Appellant's property at a higher amount than the assessment value in place when Curry turned age sixty-five due to the timing of the date of assessment value in relation to the date of property owners' birthdays.

Howard Curry's property appraisal increased on two different occasions after his sixty-fifth birthday. After the second assessment, Curry unsuccessfully petitioned the Equalization Board of Pope County to reduce the appraisal on his property. Curry then filed a petition in the county court, stating that the valuation was arbitrary and unreasonable and that the property was incorrectly assessed under Ark. Const. amend. 79, which prohibits an increase in the assessed value on a principal place of residence after the taxpayer's sixty-fifth birthday, unless that taxpayer has made substantial improvements on that residence. The county court ruled only on the assessment value and did not rule on the amendment 79 issues. Curry appealed and also filed a petition for declaratory relief and an injunction. The two cases were merged for trial. The circuit court ruled on the assessment, which was higher than the assessment in place on Curry's sixty-fifth birthday, and found that the improvements Curry made to his residence before he turned age sixty-five were "substantial improvements" within the language of the amendment. In the first of Curry's two appeals, the Supreme Court affirmed for the reasons stated in the second appeal, Curry v. Pope County, 2011 Ark. 408.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, considering a suit by the city to collect taxes from a ticket reseller, requested a determination of whether municipalities may require electronic intermediaries to collect and remit amusement taxes on resold tickets. The Illinois Supreme Court held that state law preempts such a tax. The state has a long history of protecting consumers and has regulated auctioneers for more than 10 years and ticket resales for 20 years; it has regulated scalping in some form since 1923. The statutory scheme, and the debates which produced the Ticket Sale and Resale Act (720 ILCS 375/0.01) evince an intent to allow internet auction listing services to opt out of any obligation regarding local tax collection. The city overstepped its home rule authority.

Wehrenberg, Inc. operated a restaurant-style concession offering hotdogs, pizza, and similar items at four of its movie theaters. Wehrenberg charged its customers the four percent state sales tax imposed by Mo. Rev. Stat. 144.202. Wehrenberg then filed a sales tax refund claim with the Director of Revenue, asserting that the concession items should have been taxed at the one percent rate set forth in Mo. Rev. Stat. 144.014. The Director and the AHC denied the claim. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that because the food for sale at Wehrenberg's concession stands was not intended for home consumption, the one percent state sales tax rate set forth in section 144.014 did not apply to Wehrenberg's food sales.

The government appealed from an order of the district court granting a preliminary injunction to stay enforcement of provisions of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act (PACT Act), Pub. L. No. 111-154, section 2(a), 124 Stat. 1087, 1088, requiring mail-order cigarette sellers to pay state excise taxes. The government argued that the district court erred in concluding that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the PACT Act's provision requiring out-of-state tobacco sellers to pay state excise taxes, regardless of their contact with that state, violated the Due Process Clause. The court held that because the district court's entry of the preliminary injunction was not an abuse of discretion, the court affirmed the judgment.

This appeal concerned tax deductions that Altria claimed in 1996 and 1997, and which the IRS disallowed. The claimed deductions resulted from Altria's participation in nine leveraged lease transactions with tax-indifferent entities. The jury found that Altria was not entitled to the claimed tax deductions. Applying the substance over form doctrine, the jury rejected Altria's contention that it retained a genuine ownership or leasehold interest in the assets and therefore was entitled to the tax deductions. The district court denied Altria's motion for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial and entered judgment for the government. The court affirmed and held that Altria had not shown that the district court erred in instructing the jury regarding the substance over form doctrine.

Plaintiff partnership was formed for the purpose of facilitating the acquisition of a portfolio of Chinese nonperforming loans (NPLs). The IRS determined that plaintiff was a sham partnership that need not be respected for tax purposes and that plaintiff's allocation of the $200 million loss to the deducting partner should be disallowed. At issue on appeal are the income-tax consequences of three interrelated transactions entered into by plaintiff and its three members. The court held that the district court correctly held that, while the acquisition of an interest in a portfolio of Chinese NPLs had economic substance, the plaintiff partnership was a sham that must be disregarded for federal income-tax purposes. As a consequence, that acquisition must be recharacterized as a direct sale. The court also held that the district court was correct to disallow all accuracy-related penalties on the ground that plaintiff had reasonable cause for, and exhibited good faith in, reporting the positions it took on its 2002 partnership return. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.