I remember seeing a film, long ago, when I made E-5 and was freed from guard duty and elevated to CQ. If this is incomprehensible to you, reader, consider yourself lucky. CQ was Charge of Quarters, one who sat all night long next to a telephone, prepared for any emergency. The film showed a counterpart, stationed in Germany, answering the telephone, running through a barracks shouting “Alert! Alert!” as the troops vaulted from their racks to rehearse for World War Three.

It seems this has happened in Long Leaf Property Holdings, LLC, Long Leaf Manager, LLC, Tax Matters Partner, Docket No. 11982-16, filed 3/24/21, although not quite so dramatically.

I’ll let Judge Albert G (“Scholar Al”) Lauber tell the story.

Last September, “…we received a joint status report indicating that a tentative settlement had been reached between respondent and petitioner Long Leaf Manager, LLC, the tax matters partner (TMP) of the partnership. …respondent filed a motion for entry of decision to which petitioner did not object. By Order…we instructed any partner who objected to respondent’s motion to file, by March 1, 2021, a motion for leave to file a notice of election to participate out of time. See Tax Court Rules 245(b) and 248(b).

“On March 1, 2021, two partners filed… separate Motions for Leave to File Notices of Election to Participate, and lodged…separate Notices of Election to Participate. The partners represent that they collectively hold approximately a 99% interest in the partnership. They represent that the TMP does not object to the granting of their Motions, but they do not know whether respondent objects.” Order, at p. 1.

Well, today IRS gets a month to answer.

Turns out back in May last year, the Long Leaf Manager stiped to be bound by 11838-16.

One might echo the Cockney enquiry “Who’s 11838-16 when ‘e’s at ‘ome?” Why, nobody but our old friend Railroad Holdings, LLC, who, three months earlier, had their conservation easement blown up by Judge David Gustafson, as more particularly bounded and described in my blogpost “The Old Texas Maxim,” 2/5/20.

I strongly suspect the minute the partners glanced at the proposed decision, the TMP got The Phone Call; in fact, more than one Phone Call. I’ll bet the TMP didn’t object.