This case stemmed from the over $450,000 petitioners owed to the IRS for failing to report income derived from a fraudulent check-cashing scheme. At issue, inter alia, was whether the Tax Court had jurisdiction in a hearing conducted pursuant to 26 U.S.C. 6330 to review the IRS's failure to comply with its statutory mandate under 26 U.S.C. 6335(f). The court held that the Tax Court had jurisdiction under section 6330 to review the IRS's failure during a collection due process hearing to comply with its mandate under section 6335(f). When the IRS violated its statutory mandate, it assumed the risk of devaluation in the levied property, and the Tax Court appropriately ordered it to credit petitioners' outstanding tax liabilities. Because this relief was a specific remedy, 26 U.S.C. 7433 did not preempt the award. Accordingly, the judgment of the Tax Court was affirmed.

Plaintiffs, retired U.S. Airways pilots, each received pensions from the U.S. Airways pension plan (the plan) and each opted to receive his pension in a single lump sum rather than as an annuity. Plaintiffs subsequently sued U.S. Airways claiming that the plan owed them interest for its 45-day delay. The court reversed the judgment of the district court with respect to plaintiffs' actuarial equivalence claim where the amount of plaintiffs' lump sum benefit was equal to the actuarial present value of the annuity payments plaintiffs would have received under the plan's default payment option. Even so, U.S. Airway's 45-day delay in paying plaintiffs was unrelated to the calculation of plaintiffs' benefits and therefore, not reasonable under existing IRS regulations. The court remanded to the district court to calculate the appropriate amounts due to plaintiffs and affirmed the judgment of the district court that plaintiffs were not entitled to attorney's fees.

Defendant Catherine Senninger was convicted on six counts of mail fraud and one count of making a false claim against the Government. She was acquitted on several other counts, including conspiracy and additional mail fraud counts. At trial, the Government presented evidence that Defendant, through her involvement with Olympia Financial and Tax Services, participated in a scheme to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and the Colorado Department of Revenue by preparing false tax returns. Defendant was sentenced to 36 months' imprisonment, which was an upward departure from the advisory guidelines range. Defendant challenged her sentence and subsequent restitution order. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found the district court "properly rejected" Defendant's arguments. Accordingly, the Court affirmed Defendant's sentence.

This case involved a determination of the value of real property owned by Huntington National Bank. The County Board of Revision (BOR) determined the true value of the property to be $2,000,000, thereby reducing the value from the $2,650,000 originally assigned by the auditor. The Board of Tax Appeals (BTA) affirmed. The Plain Local Schools Board of Education appealed, arguing that the BOR and BTA erred by (1) determining the value of real property based in part on factual material set forth in a written appraisal report when the appraiser who prepared the report did not testify, and (2) considering evidence contained in an appraisal report that offered an opinion of value as of a date other than the tax-lien date. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that (1) because the school board did not object below to the alleged violation of appraisal-practice standards, the school board's claim that the violation made proferred evidence inadmissible was waived; and (2) the appraisal did furnish evidence relevant to determining the value as of the tax-lien date, even though the report itself used that data to arrive at an opinion of value for a different date.

This case stemmed from a bankruptcy appeal of a tax debt owed by debtor to the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB). The bankruptcy court and the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) found that the debt was not excepted from discharge in debtor's Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding. At issue was whether, as a consequence of debtor's prior Chapter 13 Bankruptcy case, the lookback period was suspended and the tax debt was not discharged. The court held that when the bankruptcy court confirmed debtor and debtor's husband's Chapter 13 plan, the estate property revested in debtor and became debtor's property, thus lifting the applicable stay provisions. Since this revesting occurred before the tax debt became due, no stay precluded the FTB from collection on the debt under 11 U.S.C. 362. Consequently, the tax debt was not excepted from the Chapter 7 discharge, and the principles of equitable tolling did not apply to extend the lookback period as the FTB was neither precluded from collecting on the tax debt nor did it actively try to protect its claim. Accordingly, the court held that the debt was discharged and affirmed the BAP.

Fabian Muyaba, Joseph Mudekunye, and three co-defendants were charged in a 39-count indictment stemming from their tax-fraud conspiracy. Muyaba, Mudekunye, and one co-defendant were convicted in a joint jury trial. Muyaba challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to support his convictions; the district court's applying two Sentencing Guidelines enhancements; and its ordering part of his sentence to run consecutively. Mudekunye challenged the district court's failure to sever his trial from Muyaba's and his sentence as being procedurally unreasonable. The court held that, in light of the significant disparity between Mudekunye's sentence and the top of the correct Guidelines range and the absence of any evidence suggesting that the court would have sentenced him to 97 months imprisonment irrespective of the correct Guidelines range, Mudekunye had shown a reasonable probability of a lesser sentence and therefore, demonstrated that the district court's clear error affected his substantial rights. The court also held that the substantial disparity between the imposed sentence and the applicable Guidelines range warranted the exercise of the court's discretion to correct the error and Mudekunye's sentence was vacated and remanded for resentencing. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment on every ground with the exception of Mudekunye's sentence.

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case was whether plaintiff International Schools Services, Inc. (ISS) was properly denied a tax exemption for 2002 and 2003 under the state tax code. ISS has owned and occupied the West Windsor Township property at issue in this case since 1989. ISS is a nonprofit corporation and maintains a tax-exempt status under the Internal Revenue Service Code. Although West Windsor Township granted ISS a property tax exemption from 1990 through 2001 for the portions of ISS's property that it actually occupied, the exemption was denied for 2002 and 2003 based on the Township's review of ISS's activities. ISS appealed to the Tax Court which found that ISS had not satisfied the first prong of a three-part test (the "Paper Mill Playhouse" test) requiring that the entity seeking tax exemption be "organized exclusively for the moral and mental improvement of men, women, and children." The Appellate Division reversed that decision, and remanded for the Tax Court to address the remaining prongs of the test. On remand, the Tax Court held that ISS had not satisfied the second prong of the test because the schools, not ISS, were performing the activities sufficient for tax exemption, and ISS was merely assisting them. Focusing on the rates charged for rent to some of its for-profit affiliates, the Tax Court found also that ISS had not satisfied the third prong of the test. The Appellate Division disagreed with the Tax Court with regard to the second prong of the test, but found that ISS failed the third prong due to the subsidies it provided to its affiliates. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that West Windsor Township properly denied a property tax exemption to ISS for the tax years 2002 and 2003 because the commingling of its effort and entanglement of its activities and operations with its profit-making affiliates was significant and substantial, with the benefit in the form of direct and indirect subsidies flowing only one way-from ISS to the for-profit entities.

Taxpayers challenged three substantive bills and one appropriation bill, part of capital projects, signed by the governor in July 2009. The appellate court held that Public Act 96–34 violated the single-subject clause of the Illinois Constitution, and that the other acts were invalid because they were contingent on enactment of Public Act 96–34. The supreme court reversed, reinstating the trial court's dismissal. All of the substantive provisions in Act 96–34 are connected to capital projects; they establish revenue sources to be deposited into the Capital Projects Fund or are related to the overall subject of the Act in that they help implement other provisions. The court upheld the other acts against single-subject challenges, including challenges based on the contingency clauses. Nothing in the state constitution prohibits making legislation contingent on a separate legislative enactment. The enactments did not violate the separation of powers doctrine, public funds clause, uniformity clause, or run afoul of constitutional veto procedures. An enactment that authorizes expenditure of public funds for a public purpose is not unconstitutional for incidental benefit to private interests. There is nothing constitutionally impermissible about the inclusion of the "as approximated below" language.

Defendant was convicted of one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and two counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return. At trial, the government offered, without objection, evidence that defendant had failed to file personal income tax returns from 2002 to 2007. Defendant argued that his personal filing history was impermissible specific-act character evidence. The court held that defendant's failure to file tax returns from 2002 through 2007, when compared with the similar failures of his co-conspirators, were probative of the existence of a conspiracy. Although the court was skeptical of the government's argument that the jury did not view those failures in a negative light, the court could not conclude that any unfair prejudice derived from their admission substantially outweighed their probative value. Moreover, given the overwhelming evidence of guilt presented at trial, the court could not conclude that the admission of the testimony affected defendant's substantial rights. Accordingly, the conviction was affirmed.

Defendant pleaded guilty to four counts of aiding and abetting the preparation of false federal income tax returns and was sentenced to 72 months imprisonment. Defendant argued that his experiences in Somalia during the violent Somali civil war entitled him to a sentence well below the advisory Guidelines range. At issue was whether the district court's sentence was substantively unreasonable. The court held that the district court not only considered defendant's personal history and circumstances in fashioning a sentence, but reduced the sentence it would have otherwised assessed defendant in light thereof. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing defendant to 72 months imprisonment.