Johannes Lamprecht & Linda Lamprecht, Docket No. 14410-15, filed 7/27/18, are trying to reprise Mick’s and Keith’s 1966 melodic rebuke, as IRS tries belatedly to amend its answer to hit Hans & Linda with 6SOL for underreported offshore income.

If you don’t know who Mick & Keith are, I’m truly sorry for you.

IRS claims when they subpoenaed Hans’ employer that tolled the SOL, but Section 6501(e)(1)(A)(ii) doesn’t apply here; see my blogpost “Backward, Turn Backward, O Time in Thy Flight – Redivivus,” 1/2/18.

IRS also ditches their fraud argument.

The Section 7609(e) subpoena extension has been on the table since the beginning, so no surprise. Anyway, trial isn’t yet scheduled, so Hans & Linda can discover away.

Hans & Linda try the now-obligatory Section 6751(b) Boss Hoss enGraeving (sorry, guys), but the SOL isn’t a penalty. “Even if we were to accept the Lamprechts’ novel suggestion that an extension of the statute constitutes a ‘penalty’ of sorts, it would not be the sort of penalty affected by section 6751(b), which provides that ‘No penalty shall be assessed’. A statute of limitations is not ‘assessed’. The Lamprechts have not demonstrated that section 6751(b)(1) renders futile the Commisioner’s [sic] proposed new argument based on section 6501(e)(1)(A)(i).” Order, at p. 6 (Emphasis by the court; note that the pagination again is idiosyncratic).

All Hans’ & Linda’s other arguments have been out there since the beginning.

“The Lamprechts’ arguments do not establish that the Commissioner ‘cannot prevail on the merits’; rather they oppose the amended answer with counter-arguments concerning disputed facts, which are the type of questions that are not resolved at trial and not at the pleading stage.” Order, at p. 7.

I think Judge Gustafson, who is having a busy day, meant to say “…disputed facts, which are the type of questions that are resolved at trial and not at the pleading stage.” If disputed facts are resolved neither at pleading nor at trial, when and where do they get resolved?

Anyway, he lets IRS amend and the parties can duke this out later.