It seems the Genius Baristas, or perhaps the Tax Court webmeister, has a vendetta going on, as regards Judge Mark V Holmes’ off-the-benchers. While the orders directing the Clerk to serve the transcripts are copy-and-pasteable, the transcripts themselves are not.

Therefore I can only say “Amen!” to Judge Holmes’ diatribe against the Affordable Care Act’s MAGI ambush in Marion Jean Antilla-Brown & Vernon James Brown, 14511-19S, filed 4/30/21. Marion Jean and Vernon James, reeling from a cancer diagnosis and need to move as their rented home was sold out from under them, drew down Marion Jean’s trad IRA, which threw them from their fixed income exchange APTC into the gulch of 400% of poverty MAGI-land to the extent of $956.

This triggered a $7K tax liability.

Judge Holmes rails against this absurd and unjust confiscation. Read it, because I can’t print it. And he even keeps his grammatical neologisms out of it. I thought his middle initial, which is “V,” stood for Vittorio Emmanuele, the Italian King who vowed to impose on his subjects throughout Italy even his errors of grammar. But my sources tell me it is not.

And Judge Holmes is definitely on his game today, when he pulls a Judge Posner by skirting the new “admin record only” amendments to Section 6015(e) innocent spousery in Momoudou Lamin Fatty, Petitioner, and Hansoutie Fatty, Intervenor, Docket No. 3787-20S, filed 4/30/21. Emphasizing that this is a small-claimer, Judge Holmes says the testimony of Mo and Han is “new evidence,” because they never got a chance to testify before.

So he finds that Mo is not entitled to innocent spousery because he knew all about the tax hit that caused him and Han to enter into the IA, out from which Mo seeks to clamber. The monthly installment is only $135, frugal Mo’s outgo is a grand less than his income, and their divorce decree says that Han has to pay all taxes; so if IRS tries to glom from Mo, he can sue Han in small claims court. Just like roommates in a fight over the electric bill.

I can just hear ex-Ch J Michael B (“Iron Mike”) Thornton’s “oh yeah?”

Practitioner, the “testimony is new evidence” gambit might be a longshot when you’ve got a tough case, but in a regular case I’m betting it’s a nonstarter; and I don’t hold out much hope for a small-claimer, either.