Judge Albert G. (“Scholar Al”) explores the geography, physiography, demography, and taxability of Emanuel County, GA. And no, I don’t know where that is, either. Scholar Al says it’s in the southeastern part of GA, halfway between Macon and Savannah.

The Emanuel County website asserts it’s friendly. Judge Scholar Al says the HBU of most of it is “for low-density, single-family residences, with agriculture, recreation, and timber harvesting as complementary uses.” Watson Lake Investments, LLC, Terry J. Heath, Tax Matters Partner, T. C. Memo. 2026-106, at p. 2.

Needless to say, Terry and Co. see this as ” mixed-use development, supposedly including 66 to 69 single-family lots, 35 to 45 acres of multifamily and senior housing, and numerous commercial and office sites.” Idem, as my expensive colleagues would say. Judge Scholar Al says “(T)hese back-of-the-envelope development schemes were wholly unrealistic in a rural county with a total population of roughly 22,000.” Idem.

There’s captive 501(c)(3), a turnkey promoter, the usual cloud of witnesses, numbers from Heaven (or the other place) and all the makings of a classic Dixieland Boondockery.

But wait, there’s more!

“As shown on the map, a single-runway airstrip lies directly across a local road to the south of the Watson Lake Property. A state prison lies about 500 yards north of the Property, and a low-income housing project lies less than a mile to the east. The 144-acre tract includes a lake and related flood plain, and roughly 25% of the Property is occasionally or frequently flooded.” T. C. Memo. 2026-106, at p. 6.

Why IRS needed five (count ’em, five) lawyers for this is a puzzlement. Deficiencies and chops sustained.

I have noted petitioners’ counsel before in other contexts. This is, he says, his second full trial in Tax Court. I hope he learns from experience.

No, not Philip Roth’s 1959 controversial NBA winner (not basketball, National Book  Award). This is Ch J Patrick J. (“Scholar Pat”) Urda’s takedown of Del Monte LLC, Dev X Investment 2015, LLC, Tax Matters Partner, T. C.  Memo. 2026-107, filed 10/19/26. featuring the Del Monte Building in downtown Columbus, OH.

“(T)he Del Monte Building was built in 1902 on the northwest corner of East Mound and South Third Streets in downtown Columbus. Originally constructed as an 18-unit apartment complex, the 26,136-square-foot building consists of four stories, three above ground and one raised basement or garden level. It sits on a 0.43-acre site, with the building covering 0.269 acres and two surface parking lots occupying the remaining 0.161 acres.” T. C. Memo. 2026-107, at pp. 2-3. There follows a really complete broker’s setup.  Once again, Tax Court could produce some first-class real estate brokers, if the judiciary didn’t pay better.

Unfortunately for the Del Monte’s trusty attorneys, loyal readers of this my blog, Ch J Scholar Pat is less than charitable about their clients.

“In these syndicated conservation easement cases, we return to ground previously plowed by this Court and by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Corning Place Ohio, LLC v. Commissioner (Corning Place I), T.C. Memo. 2024-72, aff’d, Corning Place Ohio, LLC v. Commissioner (Corning Place II), 158 F.4th 715 (6th Cir. 2025). Once again, owners of historic buildings in Ohio (Columbus this time, rather than Cleveland) claim entitlement to tens of millions of dollars in charitable contribution deductions following the donations of easements placed over the buildings’ façades. The cheap sophistry at the heart of these positions remains empty and unconvincing.” T. C. Memo. 2026-107, at p. 2. Read all about Corning in my blogposts “The Façade Stands Up,” 2/28/22, and “Nothing to Lose,” 7/17/24.

If you want the story of the wheeling and dealing that backstages these melodramas,  check out Ch J Scholar Pat’s version at pp. 6-19.

Enter the appraiser, whom I’ll call CC3, a disciple of Michael Ehrmann, a name well-known in the SCE. CC3 patterned his appraisals on Ehrmann’s, despite knowing Ehrmann was enjoined from tax appraising by USDCNDOH.

There’s the usual argy-bargy about “highly contestable readings of what it means to be perpetual.” (Hi, Judge Holmes). But the Del Monte’s sand-dance around the development rights (as usual miscalled “air rights”) to build above the protected structure, leaves the grantor with too much and the 501(c)(3) with too little in case of extinguishment. The mortgagee’s papers survive the subordination attack.

The appraisal, of course, goes down in flames. The supposed expert knowledge of donors and their input is insufficient to establish knowing falsity. But the proposed HBU was both physically and financially unsustainable at time of granting the easement.

Petitioners do get some of their deductions allowed. But they’re hit with the 40% gross valuation misstatement chop on the easement, and 20% negligence in the disallowed Section 162s.

The frost is on the pumpkin on the mainland of Our Fair State, and with the approach of all-hallown summer, the battle-hardened preparer checks the updates on the software, sighs over the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer now gone, and prepares for the wrath to come.

They will come, the sophisticates, the longtime clients meticulous to the point of OCD, dropping off thumbdrives PDF-ed to the gunnels with numbers and scanned backups all indexed; the little-envelopes-RedWeld types more particularly bounded and described in my blogpost “The Shoebox-RedWeld System,” 12/8/21; and finally, the new clients, clearly referred by malevolent wellwishers, said newbies never having consulted practitioner until the day before the extension runs out and perform The Dump.

These last evoke a plaintive whimper as they depart, the practitioner reaching for acetonaphthone, naproxen sodium, or aspirin, whichever is handy.

Judge Joseph Nega describes The Dump, in the tones of one who has seen it as often as any practitioner, in an off-the-bencher, Robin D. Newton, Docket No. 37691-21, filed 10/19/26.

“Petitioner produced an assortment of receipts in support of her position, but appeared unaware of the amount of any deduction she was attempting to substantiate, let alone which of or how those receipts established entitlement thereof.” Transcript, at p. 9.