For several years, Plaintiff Housatonic Railroad Company purchased diesel fuel from a petroleum distributor that was used exclusively by Plaintiff as part of its interstate freight rail business. The distributor remitted the petroleum tax to Defendant, the commissioner of revenue services. The distributor separately billed Plaintiff for the amount of tax it paid to the department of revenue services, and Plaintiff paid that amount directly to the distributor. Plaintiff then submitted requests to the department for a refund of the money paid for the petroleum tax by the distributor to the department. The commissioner denied Plaintiff's request. Plaintiff appealed. The trial court granted Defendant's motion to dismiss, concluding that the state was immune from suit because Plaintiff could not establish an exception to sovereign immunity under any of three separate statutory provisions. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that none of the statutory provisions on which Plaintiff relied permits a rail carrier to bring an action against the state for a refund of taxes paid by a petroleum distributor.

The present matter arose from three related tax appeals involving Plaintiff Goodspeed Airport's property that consisted of a commercial utility airport and forty-three acres of open fields. The superior court denied relief on Plaintiff's claim seeking reclassification and assessment of certain of its real property as open space and disposed of all three appeals. The appellate court concluded that (1) 13.08 acres of Plaintiff's property were ineligible for open space classification; and (2) Plaintiff, notwithstanding the ongoing improper classification of its property by Defendant, the town of East Haddam, was not entitled to judicial relief from the improper assessment of its forty-three acres. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the appellate court improperly concluded that the trial court properly determined that the 13.08 acres were ineligible for open space classification and that Plaintiff was not aggrieved pursuant to Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-117a on the basis of Defendant's ongoing overassessment of the forty-three acres. Remanded.

Chevron, the franchisor, brought suit for declaratory judgment against one of its franchised dealers, M&M Petroleum Services, Inc. M&M responded with a counterclaim of its own, a counterclaim that was not only found to be frivolous, but the product of perjury and other misconduct. The court held that had M&M merely defended Chevron's suit, it could not have been held liable for attorneys' fees. The court held, however, that in affirmatively bringing a counterclaim that was reasonably found to be frivilous, M&M opened itself up to liability for attorneys' fees under the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. 2805(d)(3). Therefore, the district court did not err in determining that Chevron was eligible to recover attorneys' fees, nor did the district court abuse its discretion in determining that M&M's counterclaim was frivolous and awarding attorneys' fees to Chevron under section 2805(d)(3).

Defendants, Brian Keith Ellefson and Mark Edward Ellefsen, were convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States by obstructing the IRS in the assessment and collection of federal taxes. Brian was also convicted of three counts of filing false income tax returns while Mark was convicted of three counts of aiding and assisting the preparation of false income tax returns. Defendants appealed their convictions and challenged the restitution order. The court held that because the undisclosed information at issue was not material, there was no Brady violation. The court also held that, although the defense should have been allowed to cross-examine a certain government witness regarding a tax-loss calculation and whether she considered Brian's additional payments, any error in denying the cross-examination was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The court further held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding defendants' proposed expert testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 403. The district court also did not err in denying the motion for judgment of acquittal and did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for a new trial where the record was replete with evidence to support the jury's finding that defendants acted willfully. The court finally held that there was no clear error in the district court's judgment of restitution where the government met its burden of proof and deducted Brian's additional payments from the amount of restitution owed to the IRS. Accordingly, the convictions and restitution orders were affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of filing a false joint income tax return with his wife for calendar year 2007 and sentenced to twenty-four months in prison. On appeal, defendant argued that there was insufficient evidence of willful false reporting, admission of unfairly prejudicial evidence of gambling expenses, and a substantively unreasonable sentence. The court held that the government's evidence was sufficient to permit a rational trier of fact to find the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. The court also held that defendant's casino activities were clear evidence that he personally spent a substantial amount of his business's reported income on expenditures that were not reportable as the business's costs of goods sold and that the evidence was unlikely to unfairly prejudice him. The court further held that the district court did not abuse its substantial sentencing discretion in imposing a presumptively reasonable sentence that was within the advisory guidelines range. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Plaintiffs brought this suit to enjoin, as unconstitutional, enforcement of two provisions of the recently-enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119. The challenged provisions amended the Internal Revenue Code by adding: (1) a "penalty" payable to the Secretary of the Treasury by an individual taxpayer who failed to maintain adequate health insurance coverage and (2) an "assessable payment" payable to the Secretary of the Treasury by a "large employer" if at least on of its employees received a tax credit or government subsidy to offset payments for certain health-related expenses. The court held that because this suit constituted a pre-enforcement action seeking to restrain the assessment of a tax, the Anti-Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. 2283, stripped the court of jurisdiction. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment of the district court and remanded the case with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

Defendant was convicted of ten counts of submitting false claims against the United States and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States with respect to claims. Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence. The court held that there was sufficient evidence to show that defendant filed each of the ten tax returns at issue and committed the charged offenses. The court also held that the district court did not procedurally err in sentencing defendant based on the amount of loss caused by defendant's offenses and based on the number of victims of his offenses.

Property owners appealed a special tax assessment the Board of County Commissioners levied against real property for cleanup costs the County claimed it incurred while removing dangerous structures and unsightly conditions on that property. The district court found subject matter jurisdiction lacking and granted the County's summary judgment motion. The court of appeals affirmed. At issue on appeal was whether the property owners' claims could be brought on direct review under Kan. Stat. Ann. 60-907(a), which provides injunctive relief against an illegal levy or enforcement of any tax, charge, or assessment. The Supreme Court affirmed and in part and reversed in part, holding (1) the property owners satisfied the jurisdictional burdens under section 60-907(a) on two of its three issues; and (2) because the district court went beyond the jurisdiction question and found for the County on the merits and the court of appeals stopped short of considering the merits of any claims when it found the entire case was jurisdictionally barred, the court of appeals erred in part in its jurisdictional ruling. Remanded to the court of appeals to determine whether the district court properly granted summary judgment as to the remaining claims.

Three defendants were charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S. by obstructing the functions of the IRS, endeavoring to obstruct administration of the Internal Revenue laws, filing false tax returns, making false statements to FBI agents, and scheming to conceal material facts from a federal agency in connection with a charitable organization founded in 1993, which promoted Islamic jihad. A 24-day trial resulted in acquittal on all charges for one defendant and sentences of 12 months and 11 months in prison for the others. The First Circuit reversed acquittal on conspiracy counts, reinstating a guilty verdict, and affirmed the convictions on other counts. The variance in proof at trial did not prejudice defendants' substantial rights and the evidence was sufficient to prove a conspiracy narrower than charged.

In 2004, Sherry Ray formed CFRE, a single-member limited liability company with herself as the sole member. CFRE conducts no business and was formed solely for estate planning and asset protection purposes. To that end, Ray declined to have CFRE taxed as a corporation and, in 2006, deeded the title in her home to it. Because there was a conveyance by deed of the property, the Greenville County Assessor automatically commenced a reassessment of the property for the 2007 tax year. Accordingly, the property was subjected to the default property tax ratio of six percent until CFRE could prove entitlement to the lower ratio under section 12-43-220. When CFRE sought the four percent ratio, the Assessor denied it eligibility. CFRE, LLC appealed the decision of the Administrative Law Court (ALC) that held that real estate owned by the company was not entitled to the residential tax ratio. Furthermore, CFRE argued the ALC erred in not sanctioning the Assessor for failing to respond to discovery requests from CFRE. While the Supreme Court held the ALC did not abuse its discretion in not sanctioning the Assessor, the Court reversed the ALC's conclusion regarding CFRE's entitlement to the legal residence tax ratio and remanded the case for further proceedings.