Walt Whitman’s 1855 leaf of grass is a gift that keeps on giving. Today, it’s the song of “quintessential tax protester” Christopher Aubuchon, T. C. Memo. 2024-115, filed 12/23/24, at p. 2. IRS says Chris omitted some income, even after IRS nailed his all-zeros Form 4852 W-2 substitute. IRS amended its answer to Chris’ petition to put in the extra income from bank records reconstruction.

But Judge Christian N. (Speedy”) Weiler has a problem with IRS’ characterization.

While any deposit is presumptively income, and a lot of what IRS reconstructed is unrebutted by Chris’ lack of records, certain electronic transfers can’t be established as taxable income from IRS’ calculations. And as those figures were raised in an amendment to answer, IRS has BoP.

“However, considering the limited evidence presented, we are unable to conclude respondent has met his burden of proof with respect to all deposits found in Mr. Aubuchon’s Stanford Federal Credit Union account. Specifically, there is nothing in the record supporting a conclusion that (i) the electronic deposit of $29,173 made March 25, 2017, resulted from a sale of securities or (ii) the electronic deposits of $3,000 on January 20 and February 7, 2017, $5,000 on March 4, 2017, and $18,000 on July 25, 2017, are funds from an income-producing activity. Rather, we view these ‘electronic deposits’ to be synonymous with ‘electronic transfers’ likely between accounts of Mr. Aubuchon and not gross receipts. Other than Mr. Aubuchon’s employment and business activities with Filld and Exojoule, the record is void as to what other business activities (if any) Mr. Aubuchon conducted to derive income in tax year 2017. Accordingly, aside from those deposits attributable to Filld, E*TRADE, Coinbase.com, and Exojoule, we find the record to be unclear and insufficient to support a conclusion that these remaining electronic deposits are sources of unreported income by Mr. Aubuchon.” T. C. Memo. 2024-115, at p. 6.

So Chris gets a bye on just over half the unreported income IRS claims. But since Chris is a Stanford Ph.D., as evidenced by his loyalty to his school’s credit union, he gets full chops.