Schwenk Gilbert’s ode to the London Fire Brigade echoes through Judge David Gustafson’s exhaustive trudge through the tangled credit elect cascade of Scott Alan Webber, Docket No. 14307-18L, filed 5/22/23. Judge Gustafson has to go through 10 (count ’em, 10) years of confusing and nonexistent correspondence to find that, If Scott ever had a credit to cascade, it was long since quenched by refund thereof.

This is a liability issue, and since there was no SNOD, it gets tried de novo, with Scott getting BoP at no extra charge.

“… Mr. Webber’s burden is not simply to show that he is entitled to an overpayment that we should then direct the IRS to credit against his liability; rather, he must show that the IRS did allow a credit. If this seems like an unfairly difficult project, we must bear in mind the alternative—i.e., that a taxpayer might halt IRS collection of his liability in one year merely by claiming that he overpaid his liability in a different year. If that were so, then any CDP case could be expanded to become a comprehensive audit of a taxpayer’s plenary situation with the IRS. Tax could not be collected in any year until all claims had been resolved for all years. This is not the nature of a CDP case. Rather, in a CDP case we are generally restricted to the determination year but may take note of a credit that has been allowed by the IRS and that therefore ‘indisputably exists’ (not a mere claim of a credit by the taxpayer).” Transcript, at p. 23.

Scott can’t carry the burden. He claims a ten-year cascade, but that should be beyond a CDP, as if there’s no credit elect in year previous to year at issue, game over. But, as usual, Judge Gustafson goes the extra. Even then, there’s no indisputable evidence of an allowed credit for the base year. At best, there are “mixed signals”, Transcript, at p. 28. An ambiguity, maybe?

Anyway, Scott loses.