Judge David Gustafson is obliging to a fault. Today, however, instead of taking on the real big issue (are the travel reimbursements to the employees of Reflectxion Resources, Inc., 2020 T. C. Memo, 114, filed 8/3/20, taxable as wages?), Judge Gustafson spends 35 (count ’em, 35) pages of opinion to conclude that a justiciable controversy does not exist when both petitioner and IRS agree that Section 530 (the Social Security Act fix from 1978 when an employer misclassifies an employee consistently for years) does not apply to certain quarters of withholding. Withholding goes quarter by quarter.

Reflectxion wants to raise other issues, but those are for another day and another petition. This one affects only those quarters where Reflectxion used a payroll servicer under a professional services arrangement. And for those there is a dispute, and thus a justiciable controversy.

So there’s jurisdiction only for the quarters the servicer was doing the payroll.

The Reflectxions were here before, fighting stealth subpoenas. See my blogpost “Stealth Shot Down,” 11/21/19.