Those who at best lament, and at worst disparage, the hypertechnical, dry-as-dust arcana that (they believe) constitute tax practice really miss the human comedy (or tragicomedy), that is played out before them.

I didn’t blog Nikta Fatemeh Abdolrahim and Melvin Collins, T. C. Memo. 2020-50, filed 4/3/20. I thought the three (count ’em, three) orders I posted that day were more interesting than another preparer-gone-wrong story. And Nik and Mel had appeared before; see my blogpost “Residuals,” 4/25/18, which spoke of the fraud chops wherewith Nik and Mel were mulcted by Judge Tamara Ashcroft.

Today Judge Ashcroft enters decision (that’s what we State courtiers call a “judgment”) per Rule 155, the rule that is supposed to shield judges from having to do arithmetic to decide who owes what, a variant on our State “settle judgment on notice” judicial gambit (see my blogpost “Settle Order on Notice,” 6/23/17).

Of course Nik and Mel try to relitigate the numbers in the beancount, and lose. I’ll blog the order at Docket No. 9650-14, filed 2/10/22, not for the maneuvering, but for the result. And that’s what the human tragicomedy is about, “hearing oftentimes/The still, sad music of humanity.”

Year One, deficiency $8400, Section 6663(a) chop $6300. Year Two, deficiency $8800, Section 6663(a) chop a poetical $6664. I know, add a zero, as ex-Ch J L Paige (“Iron Fist”) Marvel so wisely put it. Both Nik and Mel had extensive educations, and income that most would envy. But I don’t know, and can’t know, what stresses they were under. Much less can I pretend that I would, or did, or could, do better in like circumstance.

But this is really what tax practice is about: real people, real stress.

So, to my brethren and sistern at the personal injury, criminal, and family law bars, all law is ultimately about people. Even our little corner of the world.