Ch J Patrick J. (“Scholar Pat”) Urda doesn’t have to run the withering gauntlet of criticism that the late Judge Richard Posner of 7 Cir unleashed on poor Judge Wherry for “lame attempts at humor.” And I’m not saying Ch J Scholar Pat’s jibes are lame. But as a target for sarcastic laughter, Lontrac Enterprises, LLC, Lontrac Investors, LLC, Tax Matters Partner, T. C. Memo;. 2026-108, filed 10/22/26, bids fair.

It’s copybook Dixieland Boondockery, mining variation. The Lontracs have a piece of TN where a river runs through it and a scenic railway crosses it, which they had on the market for $2.9 million for five (count ’em, five) years without a nibble. Suddenly, a bunch of dodgefloggers decide that the rock the railroad dug up a century ago (metagraywacke) is worth millions, and syndicate the Section 170 SCE for $74 million in writeoffs, promising highrollers three-for-one.

Of course, one of petitioners’ experts takes the Fifth. No adverse inference, but his report gets tossed.

The valuation skirmish is a nonevent. The property produced no income, so DCF is pure speculation. And there’s plenty of comparables.

“We have found that the easement here was worth $500,000 on… the date of grant. The value reported on Lontrac’s return, i.e., $74,507,000, was 14,901% of the value we have determined. The valuation misstatement was, to put it mildly, ‘gross.’” T. C. Memo. 2026-108, at pp. 44-45. (Footnote omitted).

Koner disposes of Boss Hossery. No assessment has yet been made because Section 5213(a) automatic stay, so if RA and supe are still around, signoff can be obtained.

I’ll conclude with Ch J Scholar Pat’s summary.

“This case stands apart only for the sheer audacity of the numbers involved—the partnership here claimed a deduction of $74.5 million for an easement (i.e., a restriction on use) on property that had been sitting on the market for years, failing to find a buyer willing to pay $2.9 million. The stratospheric number was based on the claim that the property was suddenly very valuable as a mine although the rocks underlying the purported mining strategy were visible to the naked eye and the area was well mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Of course, the idea of mining was chimerical, simply a way to get at a wholly unmerited tax deduction.” T. C. Memo. 2026-108, at pp.1-2.

Some may think the cognomina I assign Tax Court judges are mere caprice. I assure you, that is not the case. In proof whereof, I offer Judge Jeffrey S. (“Schwer”) Arbeit’s order in Christoper Aubuchon, Docket No. 15097-24, filed 10/22/26.

Christopher (“Gentleman Chris”) Aubuchon, s/a/k/a Christopher Aubuchon, Ph. D., now makes his third appearance in this my blog, again displaying his genteel frivolity, against which Judge Schwer Arbeit warned him in terms described in my blogpost “The ‘Quintessential Tax Protester’ Is Back,” 9/16/26.

Gentleman Chris made a Rule 161 reconsideration motion, to which Judge Schwer Arbeit a couple days ago (hi, Judge Holmes) ordered IRS to respond. But on reading Gentleman Chris’ papers, Judge Schwer Arbeit lets IRS off, and lays a blast on Gentleman Chris.

“Petitioner asks that we distinguish his frivolous positions ‘from the independently presented evidentiary and procedural issues.’ But this is just artful rhetoric: he makes the same arguments we have already rejected. We won’t explain to him yet again why he is mistaken, and we won’t ask respondent to do so either.

“Another point. In our opinion, we imposed a $5,000 penalty under section 6673(a) for advancing frivolous or groundless positions. Petitioner now asks us to vacate that penalty. We decline to do so. As we have stated twice before, petitioner understands his tax liability. See Aubuchon, T.C. Memo. 2026-87, at *10. Nonetheless he continues to assert frivolous and groundless positions. Let this be his final warning: Next time the penalty will be higher. See Aubuchon, T.C. Memo. 2026-87, at *10 n.7. He is lucky we do not take the opportunity today to increase the amount.” Order, at p. 1.

Schwer means hard, as in “hard work.”

No, not an off-topic essay about existential angst (although who knows how low this my blog may sink before I’m done with it?), this is about V, an attorney subject to State Court discipline. Name omitted, of course; said attorney has already suffered enough.

Too often, Tax Court admittees who get wigged or gigged by other tribunals never tell the Glasshouse Gang. But V did tell Tax Court, asking to be relieved in a pending case because of the State Court suspension order.

Ch J Patrick J. (“Scholar Pat”) Urda does credit V that far, but that wasn’t far enough for Rule 202(b).

“A member of the Bar of this Court is required to report to the Chair of the Court’s Committee on Admissions, Ethics, and Discipline, in writing, of suspension by another Court of whose Bar such attorney is a member no later than 30 days after entry of the order of discipline. Rule 202(b), Tax Court Rules of Practice and Procedure. Although [V] did not report her suspension to the Chair, she did report the suspension to the Court, in writing, within, 30 days of her suspension from the practice of law….” Order, at p. 1.

OK, the Rule says what it says. But who is the Chair? You won’t find him or her on the Tax Court website. The website Court directory lists admissions with a telephone number, but seems to restrict its function to “(A)dmissions procedures for practice before the Tax Court and practitioner access for DAWSON.” General questions go to Public Affairs.

So to whom and where does the disciplined practitioner, smarting from the wounds righteously administered, direct the notice to the Chair in writing? Or did Neil Diamond get it right fifty-five (count ’em, fifty-five) years ago?

Ch J Patrick J. (“Scholar Pat”) Urda has bestirred the Genius Baristas and the 18-Fs to new efforts to improve the reach and scope of DAWSON.

Commencing New Year’s Day next, all motions newly filed on or after 1/1/27, plus any briefs or memoranda in support of such motions, that are electronically filed by practitioners who are admitted to practice before the Court will be made available to the public remotely through DAWSON, the Court’s electronic filing and case management system. Oppositions to such motions that are electronically filed by practitioners who are admitted to practice before the Court will likewise be made available to the public remotely through DAWSON. Motions filed before said date will continue to be available through a records request to the copycats or at the public terminal available at the Glasshouse. Although this new feature may be implemented after January 1, 2027, it will be effective with respect to motions filed on or after that date.

Note this applies only to practitioner motions, briefs or memos; pro se stuff will be limited because of Section 6103 gaffes and redaction failures.

Practitioners are admonished to follow Rule 27 and scrub their public filings.

Don’t get me wrong here; I am definitely not saying that Veronica Kyler, Docket No. 782-26L, filed 10/21/26, will win either her innocent spousery claim or her fight about the $500-a-throw chops for want of diligence in ascertaining eligibility for HOH filing status or other tax benefits per Section 6695(g) because of her successful motion to supplement the administrative record.. Kyler is clearly a preparer for whom this is not her first rodeo, which is why IRS put three (count ’em, three) attorneys on this case.

Kyler admits she’s late with her Rule 93 motion because she blew the arithmetic, but Judge Morrison allows the late filing, as trial isn’t for another forty days and there are “other circumstances” that outweigh IRS’ objections. Order, at p. 3.

“The only documents attached to the Motion to Complete or Supplement the Administrative Record are (1) an Examining Officer’s Activity Record…; (2) a letter with an illegible date from Revenue Agent D to Kyler requesting a response by February 28, 2020; and (3) a letter from Kyler stating that she did not agree with ‘the finding of Civil Penalties by Revenue Agent D.’ The Motion further requests that the Court order respondent to identify or produce additional documents.” Order, at p. 3. (Name omitted).

IRS says Kyler is trying to relitigate underlying liability, for which she already had a chance at a prior hearing at Appeals. Judge Morrison says the documents are clearly relevant, IRS doesn’t claim they’re phony, and Appeals did consider them.

“Because the Court has not yet resolved whether Kyler had a prior opportunity to contest her underlying liability, it would be premature to exclude evidence from the trial record on the grounds that she is precluded from disputing her underlying liability.” Order, at p. 3.

But her request for IRS to identity or produce additional documents fails because outside the scope of Rule 93.

Note that innocent spousery is involved here (see Order, at p. 2), so there may be a lot more to this case than the narrow issue involved here.

Kyler gets a Taishoff “Good Job.”

Tax Court resolves cases by means of orders, summary opinions (Rules Title XVII Small Tax Cases), memoranda (regular cases), and T. C.s (Tax Court Opinions). The old Tax Court website, now obliterated by DAWSON, used to describe the difference between memoranda and T. C.s thus: “Generally, a Tax Court Opinion is issued in a regular case when the Tax Court believes it involves a sufficiently important legal issue or principle.” “Generally, a Memorandum Opinion is issued in a regular case that does not involve a novel legal issue. A Memorandum Opinion addresses cases where the law is settled or factually driven.”

An order can, and often does, finally dispose of a case. The most common examples are dismissal for want of jurisdiction, want of prosecution, failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, or Rules Title XII Decision Without Trial.

Off-the-benchers can serve as decisions or orders per Section 7459(b).

Fair enough. But what’s missing from this picture?

Judgments.

Unlike State Courts and most Federal Courts, Tax Court issues no judgments. Section 7459 only permits “reports and decisions.” But I’ve never seen a Tax Court “report” that disposes of a case. Have you?

Motions for “judgment on the pleadings” (Rule 120) and for “summary judgment” (Rule 121) are FRCP transplants, apparently so named because of practitioner familiarity, but no order or opinion granting or denying either is ever labeled a “judgment.”

This is what kind of mischief I get up to on days when there’s no opinion or order worth recording.

Judge Albert G. (“Scholar Al”) Lauber explores the geography, physiography, demography, and taxability of Emanuel County, GA. And no, I don’t know where that is, either. Scholar Al says it’s in the southeastern part of GA, halfway between Macon and Savannah.

The Emanuel County website asserts it’s friendly. Judge Scholar Al says the HBU of most of it is “for low-density, single-family residences, with agriculture, recreation, and timber harvesting as complementary uses.” Watson Lake Investments, LLC, Terry J. Heath, Tax Matters Partner, T. C. Memo. 2026-106, at p. 2.

Needless to say, Terry and Co. see this as ” mixed-use development, supposedly including 66 to 69 single-family lots, 35 to 45 acres of multifamily and senior housing, and numerous commercial and office sites.” Idem, as my expensive colleagues would say. Judge Scholar Al says “(T)hese back-of-the-envelope development schemes were wholly unrealistic in a rural county with a total population of roughly 22,000.” Idem.

There’s captive 501(c)(3), a turnkey promoter, the usual cloud of witnesses, numbers from Heaven (or the other place) and all the makings of a classic Dixieland Boondockery.

But wait, there’s more!

“As shown on the map, a single-runway airstrip lies directly across a local road to the south of the Watson Lake Property. A state prison lies about 500 yards north of the Property, and a low-income housing project lies less than a mile to the east. The 144-acre tract includes a lake and related flood plain, and roughly 25% of the Property is occasionally or frequently flooded.” T. C. Memo. 2026-106, at p. 6.

Why IRS needed five (count ’em, five) lawyers for this is a puzzlement. Deficiencies and chops sustained.

I have noted petitioners’ counsel before in other contexts. This is, he says, his second full trial in Tax Court. I hope he learns from experience.

No, not Philip Roth’s 1959 controversial NBA winner (not basketball, National Book  Award). This is Ch J Patrick J. (“Scholar Pat”) Urda’s takedown of Del Monte LLC, Dev X Investment 2015, LLC, Tax Matters Partner, T. C.  Memo. 2026-107, filed 10/19/26. featuring the Del Monte Building in downtown Columbus, OH.

“(T)he Del Monte Building was built in 1902 on the northwest corner of East Mound and South Third Streets in downtown Columbus. Originally constructed as an 18-unit apartment complex, the 26,136-square-foot building consists of four stories, three above ground and one raised basement or garden level. It sits on a 0.43-acre site, with the building covering 0.269 acres and two surface parking lots occupying the remaining 0.161 acres.” T. C. Memo. 2026-107, at pp. 2-3. There follows a really complete broker’s setup.  Once again, Tax Court could produce some first-class real estate brokers, if the judiciary didn’t pay better.

Unfortunately for the Del Monte’s trusty attorneys, loyal readers of this my blog, Ch J Scholar Pat is less than charitable about their clients.

“In these syndicated conservation easement cases, we return to ground previously plowed by this Court and by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Corning Place Ohio, LLC v. Commissioner (Corning Place I), T.C. Memo. 2024-72, aff’d, Corning Place Ohio, LLC v. Commissioner (Corning Place II), 158 F.4th 715 (6th Cir. 2025). Once again, owners of historic buildings in Ohio (Columbus this time, rather than Cleveland) claim entitlement to tens of millions of dollars in charitable contribution deductions following the donations of easements placed over the buildings’ façades. The cheap sophistry at the heart of these positions remains empty and unconvincing.” T. C. Memo. 2026-107, at p. 2. Read all about Corning in my blogposts “The Façade Stands Up,” 2/28/22, and “Nothing to Lose,” 7/17/24.

If you want the story of the wheeling and dealing that backstages these melodramas,  check out Ch J Scholar Pat’s version at pp. 6-19.

Enter the appraiser, whom I’ll call CC3, a disciple of Michael Ehrmann, a name well-known in the SCE. CC3 patterned his appraisals on Ehrmann’s, despite knowing Ehrmann was enjoined from tax appraising by USDCNDOH.

There’s the usual argy-bargy about “highly contestable readings of what it means to be perpetual.” (Hi, Judge Holmes). But the Del Monte’s sand-dance around the development rights (as usual miscalled “air rights”) to build above the protected structure, leaves the grantor with too much and the 501(c)(3) with too little in case of extinguishment. The mortgagee’s papers survive the subordination attack.

The appraisal, of course, goes down in flames. The supposed expert knowledge of donors and their input is insufficient to establish knowing falsity. But the proposed HBU was both physically and financially unsustainable at time of granting the easement.

Petitioners do get some of their deductions allowed. But they’re hit with the 40% gross valuation misstatement chop on the easement, and 20% negligence in the disallowed Section 162s.

The frost is on the pumpkin on the mainland of Our Fair State, and with the approach of all-hallown summer, the battle-hardened preparer checks the updates on the software, sighs over the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer now gone, and prepares for the wrath to come.

They will come, the sophisticates, the longtime clients meticulous to the point of OCD, dropping off thumbdrives PDF-ed to the gunnels with numbers and scanned backups all indexed; the little-envelopes-RedWeld types more particularly bounded and described in my blogpost “The Shoebox-RedWeld System,” 12/8/21; and finally, the new clients, clearly referred by malevolent wellwishers, said newbies never having consulted practitioner until the day before the extension runs out and perform The Dump.

These last evoke a plaintive whimper as they depart, the practitioner reaching for acetonaphthone, naproxen sodium, or aspirin, whichever is handy.

Judge Joseph Nega describes The Dump, in the tones of one who has seen it as often as any practitioner, in an off-the-bencher, Robin D. Newton, Docket No. 37691-21, filed 10/19/26.

“Petitioner produced an assortment of receipts in support of her position, but appeared unaware of the amount of any deduction she was attempting to substantiate, let alone which of or how those receipts established entitlement thereof.” Transcript, at p. 9.

I often wonder if this my blog (and I, its “onlie begetter”) takes itself (and I myself) too seriously. I’ve been accused of making light of Tax Court litigants’ dilemmas, even if their wounds are self-inflicted and their errors unforced. I often make unasked-for comments on Tax Court Rules and procedures, with a certain Olympian (if not Sinaiatical) detachment.

So today, something on the lighter side.

Saul Steinberg’s immortal New Yorker magazine cover made fun of the insularity of us denizens of this Minor Outlying Island off the Coast of North America. I referred to it more than once under the rubric “Everything West of the Hudson is Kansas.”

Judge Rose E. (“Cracklin'”) Jenkins is by no means insular. Judge Jenkins merely wants to get the mail to the proper destination in Hassine Sidane, 11877-25, filed 10/16/26.

With 30 (count ’em, 30) days to go before trial and an IRS motion for judgment on the pleadings awaiting reply from Hassine, “(P)etitioner has not filed a response to the motion and has not responded to attempted e-mail communication from the chambers administrator of the undersigned.” Order, at p. 1.

Default looms. But Judge Jenkins to the rescue.

“However, review of the record in this case indicates that petitioner’s address of record in this case is stated as in Dran Oran, rather than Oran Oran, as reflected in the address to which the Notice of Deficiency was mailed. Accordingly, the Court will update the address of record to be consistent with the latter, re-serve the relevant documents in this case, extend the time for petitioner to file a response, and set this case for hearing.” Order, at p. 1.

Apparently to IRS, everything east of Holtsville…but you know the rest.