No, this one doesn’t run on Amtrak; this is the celebrated “streamlined” Section 6015 innocency streamlined procedure first enunciated back on January 5, 2012, in IRS Notice 2012-8, and later enshrined in Rev Proc 2013-34, 2013-43 RB 397.

Of course, the Sriram jumpball followed; see my blogpost “Diehl or No Diehl”, 6/21/12. But now that the Rev Proc is final, and Tax Court can no longer shuck and jive around it with the “blended approach” (which means whatever Tax Court says it means at any given moment), where are all the streamlined cases?

Well, since Christmas has apparently come early at 400 Second Street, NW, where there was neither opinion nor designated order yesterday or today, The Great Dissenter, a/k/a The Judge Who Writes Like a Human Being, s/a/k/a The Inveterate, Implacable, Illustrious and Indefatigable Enemy of the Partitive Genitive, Judge Mark V. Holmes, leaps into the breach and shows us how a streamliner works.

It’s an off-the-bencher, which means it’s not precedent, can’t be cited, can’t be relied on and is first cousin to Lord Voldemort (“He Who Must Not Be Named”), but anyway, take a dekko at Catherine R. McDougall, Petitioner, and Thomas McDougall, Intervenor, Docket No. 2986-13, filed 12/4/14.

They’re community propertarians in sunny AZ, but the problem arises when Tom’s partnership, which was pre-marital, unloads some IA real estate in a condemnation, elects the three-year Section 1033 rollover, but blows the deadline because Catherine’s suing him for divorce.

IRS liens both Tom and Catherine, and when they unload the marital domicile pursuant to the divorce decree, the escrow agent (this is the Far West, where they don’t sit down at closings) hands IRS two checks, His and Hers.

Judge Holmes parses Rev Proc 2013-34, and finds Catherine innocent and streamlined, just like IRS did. Tom is apparently a shady character, although Judge Holmes doesn’t tell us how he reaches this conclusion.

Since it’s fact-driven and community-propertarian, I’ll leave off the analysis, but read Judge Holmes’ marked-up transcript (even though he missed an inappropriate apostrophe, he got most of them).

We now have some idea of how Tax Court might deal with a streamliner.