On background, as those not wishing to have their personal peccadilloes and vendettas appear in the public print should specify, see my blogpost “Same Time, Next Year,” 3/3/17. Therein, that repository of endless wisdom, the American Bar Association Tax Section, to which august assemblage I do not belong, belittled my suggestion that specifying a place of trial that bore some connection, however faint and attenuated, to the location of the petitioners, taxpayers, witnesses, physical evidence, experts or counsel might be a valid consideration to be addressed by a Tax Court Rule.

The sages opined that many petitioners, pro se of course, get even the present minimal Form 5 wrong. They do; functional illiteracy is a greater threat to the Republic than most of the horribles appearing in the media.

But today that Obliging Jurist, Judge David Gustafson, has a bad case of indigestion from Good Eats Corporation, Docket No. 26638-15, filed 7/31/17, a designated hitter. Thanks, Judge.

Besides not providing any information to IRS to cause them to change their position, expressed in the SNOD from which the Good Eater was petitioning, the Good Eater struck out on Form 6, completing which is materially less difficult than any Form 1120 I’ve ever encountered.

Judge Gustafson: “Petitioner has failed to file the disclosure statement despite the requirement of Rule 20(c) and our orders of October 26, 2015, November 8, 2016, and December 21, 2016.” Order, at p. 2.

Note that the Ownership Disclosure Statement, Form 6 (rev. 05/2012) on the Tax Court website list of forms, poses but two (count ‘em, two) questions, to both of which I daresay 98% of the corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies filing petitions could answer decisively “NONE.”

Perhaps the American Bar Association Tax Section was right.