There’s a multifaceted discovery joust in Mohammad Fawad Aryanpure & Malika Aryanpure, Docket No. 17120-23, filed 6/20/25, with Judge Ronald L. (“Ingenuity”) Buch taxing his ingenuity to sort out what Mo & Mal have to tell IRS, and vice versa.

Since most of this is intensely fact-bound, I’ll leave it to the discovery geeks among you to delve deeply. I’m looking for the broader issue, namely, viz., and to wit, IRS’ exam and interview notes. IRS’ notes, memoranda, and casual jottings may not be privileged; as always, it depends.

“Petitioners seek access to a number of documents in the administrative file that respondent contends are covered by attorney-client, deliberative process, and work product privileges. However, their arguments against privilege generally do not withstand scrutiny. Furthermore, petitioners have not identified any authority to support their contention that the Commissioner must personally assert the deliberative process privilege. Cf. Marriott Int’l Resorts, L.P. v. United States, 437 F.3d 1302, 1307–08 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (recognizing that the authority to assert deliberative process privilege may be delegated). Accordingly, this Court will not consider the government to have waived privilege with respect to any such documents that may be relevant.

“However, this Court agrees with petitioners that notes or memoranda of interviews conducted during the IRS examination may potentially not be subject to privilege. Respondent’s privilege logs provide insufficient information to assess the claimed privileges. Furthermore, this Court is not in a position to assess the potential relevance of the materials. This Court will order respondent to supplement the privilege logs with respect to the notes and memoranda of interviews identified by petitioners…  to provide additional information for those documents being withheld. Petitioners remain free to challenge respondent’s privilege log, as supplemented, and the Court will consider in camera review with respect to any particular items identified by petitioners as potentially relevant and still sought at such juncture.” Order, at p. 5.

Practitioners, maybe so might could be there’s gold in them back-of-envelope scrawls an RA threw in the bottom of the file folder.