No, not a poker player’s hard luck story; this is the current condition of the Tax Court Bench, with 18 (count ‘em, 18) highly-qualified, hardlaboring judges, “each and every one keen in their vocation,” as the Man From Mumbai put it.

So why is Judge Ronald L. (“Ingenuity”) Buch taxed with poking through the embers of twenty-five (count ‘em, twenty-five) consolidated document subpoena jousts between IRS and Skylab Series of Fortress Insurance, LLC, et al., Docket No. 25669-16, filed 10/31/24?

I’ve asked before now why a law secretary or a magistrate could not sort this out. After all, does it require such heavy artillery as Judge Ingenuity Buch brings to the battlefield to conclude that “(T)he insurance claims accepted or denied by the insurance risk pools that the petitioners participated in is relevant to determine if petitioners were insurance companies.” Order, at p. 4.