I’ve lost count of the times I’ve repeated this mantra, or told the story of the Judge who granted my motion (dearly sought by the client) and set in train a monster.

Today I note its application even to the exalted personages on the learned and distinguished Bench of the United States Tax Court, even at the Senior Judge level.

Y’all will recall Oakbrook Land Holdings, LLC, William Duane Horton, Tax Matters Partner, Docket No. 5444-13, filed 3/15/19. Tax Matterer Billy D was leading the charge to knock out Reg. §1.170A-14(g)(6)(ii).

If not, see my blogpost “Perpetuum Fragile?,” 2/27/19.

There you are. Now you know Judge Mark V Holmes, aware that there might have been public comments submitted to the Treasury Department during the course of considering said Reg., was unable to extricate same by usual means (and neither was I, btw).

So, setting a tight deadline for a minimalist’s delight of briefing once said comments, if any, surfaced, Judge Holmes sent IRS to go find same.

Comes now the point of this little essay.

“On March 14, 2019 we spoke with the parties again and learned that the comments are approximately 2600 pages in length. The Commissioner will mercifully produce them in .pdf and indexed form with Bates-stamped page numbering.” Order, at p. 1.

So the briefs, though still minuscule, are put off for a couple months (this is Judge Holmes, after all).

And maybe Treasury can put this megillah online, now they’ve gone to the trouble of producing it. Judge Holmes must have forgotten that most commentators on proposed Federal regs are lawyers. As Tom Jefferson said, these are those “…whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and to talk by the hour.”

Heed the title hereinabove at the head hereof set forth.