Ever since my earliest acquaintance with United States Tax Court practice, Judge Dawson’s sacred mantra from his immortal decision in Branerton Corp., 61 T. C. 691 (1974), at p. 692, has been resounding throughout this my blog: “For many years the bedrock of Tax Court practice has been the stipulation process, now embodied in Rule 91.”

So why are we getting orders like Darryl M. Jacobs & Suzanne M. Jacobs, et al., Docket No. 14682-23, filed 10/9/26?

It’s the standard IRS Section 6751(b) Boss Hoss compliance motion for summary J. To which petitioners’ trusty attorney, whom I’ll call Steve, files “…a Response to Motion for Partial Summary Judgment indicating that petitioners do not object to the granting of respondent’s Motion as it relates to the supervisory approval requirement of section 6751(b)(1).” Order, at p. 1.

Judge Nega agrees, after the boilerplate recitations of the virtues of summary J, with which I heartily concur. But do we need this?

I must assume that Steve, clearly not a Tax Court novice (I wish I knew all that he knows about it), has done at least one Branerton phonecall with IRS in this case. And that at least one of the ten (count ’em, ten) IRS counsel assigned to this case has had a wee word with Steve about chops, add-ons, and Boss Hossery. If not, why not?

Surely Judge Nega’s time is too valuable, and Tax Court clerical resources too overstretched, to require a formal order for an undisputed factual question in six (count ’em, six) conjoined cases.

How about a sentence in Stip One like this. “P and R agree that R’s applicable employees have complied with the formal requisites of IRC Section 6751(b). The foregoing sentence shall not be deemed or construed to be a concession by or on behalf of P that any tax, penalty, additions to tax, charge, fee, or impost, however denominated, is due, payable or owing, except as may be explicitly elsewhere herein set forth.”

I was taught in my young day that making life easy for the judge was more than its own reward.

I just recently noted the exemplary protections afford whistleblowers both generally by Section 6103 and specifically by Rule 345, and yet Judge Kashi (“My or the High”) Way has to admonish both Whistleblower 36070-21W, filed 10/8/26, and IRS’ counsel not to e-file unredacted documents containing PII.

And Judge Way has to seal, enumerate, and set out specifically what documents they need to redact and refile.

This despite his having earlier ordered them to do exactly that. Both parties then blithely repeated their previous errors.

Some beg too late for a level of anonymity provided only to certain petitioners. But when those already accorded special treatment ignore the protection they’re offered, I can only shake my head.

Judge Mark V. (“Vittorio Emanuele”) Holmes doesn’t disrespect a single partitive genitive in Drake Johnson, Docket No. 10265-25L, filed 10/8/26. What he does, is to cut the usual three-page toss of a petitioned CDP down to a page.

The usual toss order goes into the history of Sections 6320 and 6330, de novo vs abuse of discretion, a procedural history of the case, and the fact that petitioner never submitted a complete Form 433-A or B and backups for the requested CA. Then follows the boilerplate copious citation of precedent.

Judge Holmes does as is first hereinabove written at the head hereof, as my expensive colleagues say.

“The only issue is this rejection of Mr. Johnson’s request for a collection alternative. When the amount of tax liability is not at issue, our standard of review is abuse of discretion. This means that we look to see if the Commissioner’s decision was based on an error of law or rested on a clearly erroneous finding of fact, or whether he ruled irrationally. 

“We also review only the reasons given by the IRS in its notice of determination, not new reasons made for the first time on appeal. In other words, we follow Chenery.

“We have to conclude that the Appeals officer didn’t abuse his discretion in rejecting this request because Mr. Johnson did not submit supplemental financial information that the Appeals officer reasonably requested.” Order, at p. 1. (Citations omitted, but they’re the usual ones).