A designated hitter from Special Trial Judge Lew (The Right Spelling) Carluzzo teaches Pierre R. Levy, tax matterer, that no FPAA can ever be small enough to merit Section 7463 small-claimer treatment.

The case is Go Apparel, LLC, Pierre R. Levy, Tax Matters Partner, Docket No. 3519-13S, filed 9/13/13, but it won’t be “S” once STJ Lew gets through with it.

Pierre petitions from what he calls a deficiency, except it isn’t, and asks for the case to be treated as a small claimer, which it also isn’t.

There’s no SNOD, rather there’s a FPAA. Now that sets up a Section 6226(a) petition. But Section 7463(a), the small-claimer statute, speaks only of a “redetermination of a deficiency”, and this isn’t a deficiency (although it may wind up so for the partners). At least, not yet.

So IRS moved to drop the letter “S” from the docket. STJ Lew says that’s moot (although he might have granted the motion), but orders the “S” dropped anyway, and strikes the case from the small-claims calendar, continuing it generally (that is, adjourning it until it can be tried in a proper place).

A FPAA is never small.