Jade Trading, L.L.C. v. United States

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
2008-5045
JADE TRADING, LLC, by and through,
ROBERT W. ERVIN and LAURA KAVANAUGH ERVIN
on behalf of ERVIN CAPITAL, LLC, Partners Other
Than the Tax Matters Partner,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee.
David D. Aughtry, Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Williams & Martin, of Atlanta,
Georgia, argued for plaintiffs-appellants. With him on the brief were Nicolas F. Kory;
and Linda S. Paine, of Houston, Texas.
Joan I. Oppenheimer, Attorney, Appellate Section, Tax Division, United States
Department of Justice, of Washington, DC, argued for defendant-appellee. With her on
the brief were Gilbert S. Rothenberg, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and
Richard Farber, Attorney.
Appealed from: United States Court of Federal Claims
Judge Mary Ellen Coster Williams
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
2008-5045
JADE TRADING, LLC, by and through,
ROBERT W. ERVIN and LAURA KAVANAUGH ERVIN
on behalf of ERVIN CAPITAL, LLC, Partners Other
Than the Tax Matters Partner,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims in 03-CV-2164, Judge Mary
Ellen Coster Williams.
_______________________
DECIDED: March 23, 2010
_______________________
Before LOURIE, ARCHER, and LINN, Circuit Judges.
ARCHER, Circuit Judge.
Jade Trading, LLC (“Jade”) appeals the Court of Federal Claims’ denial of its
petition for readjustment of the partnership items of Jade and its affirmance of the
Internal Revenue Service’s (“IRS” or “Service”) application of penalties at the
partnership level without consideration of the partners’ reasonable cause defense. Jade
Trading v. United States, 80 Fed. Cl. 11 (2007). Because the contribution of euro call
options to Jade (hereinafter sometimes called the spread transaction) was a transaction
that lacked economic substance, we affirm the Court of Federal Claims’ denial of Jade’s
petition. Further, we hold that the Court of Federal Claims lacked jurisdiction to review
the application of penalties based on the outside bases of Jade’s partners, and we
therefore vacate that portion of the court’s judgment and remand for further
proceedings. We also vacate as moot the Court of Federal Claims’ determination that
Temp. Treas. Reg. § 301.6221-1T(c), (d) is not invalid.
I
A
This case is governed by certain provisions of the Tax Equity and Fiscal
Responsibility Act of 1982 (“TEFRA”). See 26 §§ U.S.C. 6221-31 (1998). 1 Prior to
TEFRA’s enactment, tax liability adjustments of individual partners based on the
operations of the partnership were rendered at the partner level. “TEFRA was intended,
in relevant part, to prevent inconsistent and inequitable income tax treatment between
various partners of the same partnership resulting from conflicting determinations of
partnership level items in individual partner proceedings.” RJT Invs. X v. Comm’r
Internal Revenue, 491 F.3d 732, 737 (8th Cir. 2007). Under TEFRA, all “partnership
items” are determined in a single proceeding. 26 U.S.C. § 6221. 2 The results of this
proceeding then apply to each individual partner’s income tax return. If a partner
wishes to challenge any adjustment to his income tax return or to assert any partner-
level defenses, he may file a partner level refund suit. 26 U.S.C. § 6230(c).
1
Hereinafter, Title 26 U.S.C. is referred to as “the Tax Code.”
2
Section 6221 of the Tax Code states “[e]xcept as otherwise provided in
this subchapter, the tax treatment of any partnership item (and the applicability of any
penalty, addition to tax, or additional amount which relates to an adjustment to a
partnership item) shall be determined at the partnership level.”
2008-5045 2
B
This case involves a tax shelter designed to produce large, artificial, i.e.,
noneconomic, losses for tax purposes. Jade Trading, 80 Fed. Cl. at 20. In general, the
tax shelter here involved four steps: “1) Investment in Foreign Currency, 2) Contribution
to a Partnership, 3) Partnership Investments, 4) Termination of Partnership Interests.”
Id. at 24-25 (describing tax opinion prepared for potential investors by BDO Seidman, a
national accounting and tax consulting firm). The investor first simultaneously
purchased a European-style call option and sold a European-style call option. 3 Id. at
25. The investor next contributed the purchased and sold call options to a partnership.
Id. The investor eventually exited the partnership, received an asset with a claimed
high-basis and low-value, and then sold that asset in order to generate a tax loss. Id. A
tax loss was anticipated because, at the time of the facts giving rise to this case, an
investor’s basis in a partnership was ordinarily not decreased by the amount of a
contingent liability contributed to or assessed by a partnership. See Helmer v. Comm’r,
34 T.C.M. (CCH) 727 (1975) (holding that a contingent obligation, such as an option,
was not a liability under § 752 of the Tax Code because a partnership’s obligation under
the option does not become fixed until the option is exercised). 4
C
The parties do not disagree with the basic facts found by the Court of Federal
Claims. Therefore, we recite only those facts relevant to this decision.
3
An option is a contract that gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation,
to buy or sell an asset at a predetermined price (the strike price). A European-style
option is an option that can only be exercised on its expiration date.
4
The sold call option contributed to the partnership in this case is similarly a
contingent obligation that does not become fixed until it is exercised.
2008-5045 3
Robert W. Ervin and his two brothers were equal partners in a cable business,
which they sold in 1999. The sale proceeds received in March 1999 resulted in a total
gain to each brother of approximately $13,500,000. Because the buyer was a publicly
traded company, the transaction was disclosed to the Securities Exchange
Commission. Thereafter, the Ervins received numerous offers of investment and tax
advice. After considering a number of these investment and tax proposals, the following
transaction at issue here was entered into by the Ervin brothers.
In September 1999, the Ervin brothers each formed a single-member LLC. On
September 15, 1999, each Ervin LLC entered into a separate master trading agreement
with AIG, and each paid AIG an $84,100 “account opening fee” pursuant to this
agreement. On September 29, 1999, each Ervin LLC purchased from AIG a call option
on the euro at a strike price of 1.0840 (“purchased call option”) for $15,000,020 and sold
to AIG a call option on the euro at a strike price of 1.0850 (“sold call option”) for
$14,850,018. The options were all European-style options that expired on September
29, 2000, and had a face amount of 290,540,000 euros. Each Ervin LLC paid AIG only
the difference in the premiums of the offsetting options, or $150,002.
On October 2, 1999, each Ervin LLC entered into a fifteen-month “consulting
agreement” with New Vista, LLC (an affiliate of Sentinel Advisors, LLC), which required
each Ervin LLC to pay New Vista $750,000 for “consulting services.” Payment of this
fee was a prerequisite to the Ervin LLCs being admitted to the Jade partnership. Jade
was formed by Sentinel and Banque Safra, a Luxembourg financial institution, on
September 23, 1999, with Sentinel as the managing partner. On October 6, 1999, each
Ervin LLC entered Jade as a partner. On that same day, each Ervin LLC contributed
2008-5045 4
the above described euro call options to Jade, as well as $75,000 cash. In December
1999, each Ervin LLC withdrew from Jade. Each Ervin LLC’s interest in assets
distributed to it by Jade was valued at $126,122. The distributed assets consisted of
Xerox stock, which was sold in 1999, and euros.
On its partnership return for 1999, Jade reported on its Schedule K (Partners’
Shares of Income, Credits, Deductions, etc.) a loss of $292,015. Each of the Ervin
brother’s individual income tax return for 1999 claimed approximately $15 million in tax
losses from his execution of the spread transaction and involvement in Jade. These tax
losses resulted from each brother’s increasing the basis of his interest in Jade (“outside
basis”) by the cost of the purchased call option ($15 million) and not decreasing this
basis by the amount of the potential liability that Jade assumed under the sold call
option.
After auditing the Jade partnership return, the IRS issued a final partnership
administrative adjustment (“FPAA”) to Jade with respect to Jade’s partnership items for
the 1999 tax year. The FPAA determined that the Jade partnership should be
disregarded and all transactions engaged in by Jade should be treated as being
engaged in directly by the purported partners, including the Ervin LLCs. Thus, the
FPAA disallowed the deductions claimed for losses purportedly incurred from the
contribution of the spread transactions to Jade. The FPAA also disallowed the losses
claimed by Jade and reduced Jade’s claimed distributions of property to zero. The IRS
also imposed accuracy-related penalties under § 6662 of the Tax Code.
Subsequently, Jade filed a petition for readjustment of the partnership items of
Jade in the Court of Federal Claims. The court upheld the IRS’s determination,
2008-5045 5
concluding that Jade had not met its burden of demonstrating that the contribution of the
spread transactions to Jade objectively had economic substance. Jade Trading, 80
Fed. Cl. at 14. The court also affirmed the penalties determined by the IRS at the
partnership level without considering the reasonable cause defenses that the partners
might have. Id. at 60.
Jade appealed, and we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).
II
A
We review de novo the Court of Federal Claims’ conclusion that the contribution
of the spread transaction to Jade lacked economic substance. Coltec Indus., Inc. v.
United States, 454 F.3d 1340, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2006). However, we review the court’s
factual findings underlying this conclusion for clear error. SCS Hosp. Sys., Inc. v.
Montefiore Hosp., 732 F.2d 1572, 1578 (Fed. Cir. 1984). Finally, we review the court’s
jurisdictional determinations de novo. Distributed Solutions, Inc. v. United States, 539
F.3d 1340, 1343 (Fed. Cir. 2008).
B
The Court of Federal Claims held that the Ervin LLCs’ contributions of the spread
transactions to Jade lacked economic substance. We agree.
The economic substance doctrine “require[s] disregarding, for tax purposes,
transactions that comply with the literal terms of the tax code but lack economic reality.”
Coltec, 454 F.3d at 1352. In Coltec we discussed the economic substance doctrine in
detail, leaving no question as to its viability. We explained that the doctrine “represents
a judicial effort to enforce the statutory purpose of the tax code.” Id. at 1353. The
2008-5045 6
doctrine, “[f]rom its inception, . . . has been used to prevent taxpayers from subverting
the legislative purpose of the tax code by engaging in transactions that are fictitious or
lack economic reality simply to reap a tax benefit.” Id. at 1353-54. In Coltec, after
examining cases from the Supreme Court, various courts of appeals, and our
predecessor court, we concluded that the economic substance doctrine incorporated
five general principles. Specifically, we opined that 1) the transaction cannot lack
economic reality; 2) the taxpayer bears the burden of proving that the transaction has
economic substance; 3) the economic substance of a transaction must be viewed
objectively rather than subjectively; 4) the transaction to be analyzed is the one that
gave rise to the alleged tax benefit; and 5) arrangements with subsidiaries that do not
affect the economic interests of independent third parties deserve particularly close
scrutiny. Id. at 1355-57. We also explained that “a lack of economic substance is
sufficient to disqualify the transaction without proof that the taxpayer’s sole motive is tax
avoidance.” Id. at 1355.
The Ervin LLCs’ transfer of the spread transactions to Jade lacked economic
substance. The Ervin LLCs purchased euro call options from AIG for a premium of
$15,000,020 and sold euro options to AIG for a premium of $14,850,018. However, the
Ervin LLCs paid AIG only the difference – a net premium of $150,002. After contributing
the spread transactions to Jade and subsequently exiting the partnership, the Ervins
claimed a basis of over $15 million in their Jade interests by including only the cost of
the purchased call option. As a result, the artificially inflated basis generated a
purported $14.9 million tax loss.
2008-5045 7
As the Court of Federal Claims noted, this loss was “purely fictional.” Jade
Trading, 80 Fed. Cl. at 45. Each Ervin LLC did not invest $15 million in the spread
transaction contributed to Jade and did not lose almost $15 million upon exiting Jade.
Neither option was, in fact, exercised. Thus, each Ervin LLC had a real loss of
approximately $100,000 upon exiting Jade – the difference between its capital
contribution of $225,000 to the Jade partnership and its redemption proceeds of
$126,122 received from Jade.
Additionally, the formation of the Jade partnership appears to have had no
economic purpose. The partnership did nothing to enhance the investment potential of
the spread transaction. Id. at 46. However, for tax purposes, it was imperative that the
individual partners contribute the spread transactions to Jade to generate the artificially
inflated bases.
Also significant is the Court of Federal Claims’ determination that the spread
transaction was virtually guaranteed to be unprofitable. Each Ervin LLC was required to
pay an $84,100 account opening fee to AIG and a $750,000 New Vista consulting fee. 5
Thus, each Ervin LLC spent at least $834,100 for the chance at making a profit of
5
In its findings, the Court of Federal Claims also included fees for an
opinion letter prepared by Curtis Mallet. It is unclear whether each Ervin LLC was
“required” to purchase the $100,000 tax opinion letter. However, given that the letter
was requested to cover “certain aspects of United States Federal income tax in
connection with (i) investments in foreign currency that [the Ervins had] made and (ii)
transactions in which [they] engaged with a partnership . . . that trades in foreign
currency,” Jade Trading, 80 Fed. Cl. at 33, it is likely that the Ervins felt compelled to
purchase the letter. The inclusion or absence of this fee does not change our analysis.
Additionally, the fees listed above do not include Sentinel’s 2% management fee
or its 20% incentive fee, or the 5% penalty for early withdrawal from Jade (which applied
if the Ervin LLCs withdrew from Jade prior to 12 months from entering the partnership,
which they did).
2008-5045 8
$140,000. 6 No reasonable investor would engage in such a transaction to earn a profit.
The Court of Federal Claims concluded, and we agree, that
This transaction’s fictional loss, inability to realize a profit, lack of
investment character, meaningless inclusion in a partnership, and
disproportionate tax advantage as compared to the amount invested and
potential return, compel a conclusion that the spread transaction
objectively lacked economic substance.
Id. at 14. As the Court of Federal Claims found, this spread transaction and its
contribution to Jade “was developed as a tax avoidance mechanism and not as an
investment strategy” by the BDO Seidman accounting firm. Id.
Jade argues that the contribution of the spread transactions to Jade had
economic substance because the purchased call options and the sold call options were
separate assets with separate documentation and were owned by unrelated parties.
The Court of Federal Claims concluded that “the economic realities of the spread
transaction contributed to Jade made it impossible to delink the option pairs,”
explaining:
If the Ervin LLCs had wished to hold only the long position – that is,
the option they purchased from AIG – they would have faced the prospect
of theoretically unlimited gain. . . . To obtain that position, the Ervin LLCs
would have been required to pay AIG the full face amount of the premium,
about $15 million each, to purchase the options. Neither the Ervin LLCs
nor Jade ever had sufficient funds to make such a payment. Moreover,
under this scenario, the entire amount would have been at risk; had the
euro not risen to 1.084, each Ervin LLC would have lost the entire $15
million premium it paid to AIG.
Had the Ervin LLCs wished to hold on the short option sold to AIG,
they would have faced the prospect of theoretically unlimited loss, as AIG
would have benefitted in any rise of the euro above 1.085, not capped in
any way. Because such a transaction would be uncovered, AIG would
6
This is calculated by subtracting the cost of each spread transaction
($150,002) from its maximum payoff ($290,540) that could occur due to the different
option prices.
2008-5045 9
have had extensive credit concerns. The Ervin LLCs would not have
received the premiums to which they would be theoretically entitled,
because AIG would have retained those premium payments as margin,
because AIG would not have had the spread’s protection from loss. AIG
would have required that the Ervins post margin in the amount of at least
$8 million each. In sum, under the agreement with AIG, the Ervins could
not separate the components of the spread without AIG’s permission
which would not likely have been forthcoming without the required margin.
Id. at 50-51 (citations to record omitted). As the government’s expert explained, “[t]he
spread strategy component options were priced together, purchased together,
contributed to Jade together, and closed out by Jade together, and at no time during
their lives did either the Ervin LLCs or Jade have the means to separate the component
options.” [JA 5817] The Court of Federal Claims concluded that “the transactions here
cannot be separated because they were totally dependent on one another from an
economic and pragmatic standpoint.” Id. at 51. Jade has not persuaded us that this
conclusion is in error.
Accordingly, we affirm the Court of Federal Claims’ judgment that the contribution
of the spread transactions to Jade lacked economic substance and should be
disregarded for tax purposes.
C
Jade asserts that the Court of Federal Claims does not have jurisdiction to review
the penalties imposed by the IRS based on the Ervins’ outside bases in Jade.
Section 6226 of the Tax Code is TEFRA’s judicial review provision. Specifically,
§ 6226(f) grants the trial court (either the Court of Federal Claims or the United States
Tax Court):
jurisdiction to determine all partnership items of the partnership for the
partnership taxable year to which the notice of final partnership
administrative adjustment relates, the proper allocation of such items
2008-5045 10
among the partners, and the applicability of any penalty, addition to tax, or
additional amount which relates to an adjustment to a partnership item.
26 U.S.C. § 6226(f) (emphases added). 7
Jade contends that because the Ervins’ outside bases in Jade, upon which the
assessed penalties are based, are not partnership items, there could be no penalty
applicable to a partnership item to trigger the court’s penalty jurisdiction under § 6226(f).
The government responds that while a partner’s outside basis is an affected item
and thus not itself a partnership item, most (if not all) of the components of a partner’s
outside basis are themselves partnership items. The government further argues that
since all “legal and factual determinations that underlie the determination of the amount,
timing, and characterization” of partnership items are themselves partnership items, the
lack of economic substance of the spread transactions contributed to Jade is a
partnership item.
In a factually analogous case, the D.C. Circuit considered whether § 6226(f)
conferred jurisdiction on the trial court, in that case the Tax Court, to determine that the
partners had no outside bases in a partnership that was disregarded for tax purposes.
Petaluma FX Partners , LLC. v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue Serv., 591 F.3d 649 (D.C.
Cir. 2010). In Petaluma, the purported partnership, Petaluma, was formed with the
purpose of engaging in foreign currency option trading. Id. at 650. The partners each
contributed pairs of offsetting long and short foreign currency options to become
7
Under TEFRA, a “partnership item” is “any item required to be taken into
account for the partnership’s taxable year under any provision of subtitle A . . . provided
that . . . such item is more appropriately determined at the partnership level than at the
partner level.” 26 U.S.C. § 6231(a)(3). TEFRA further defines two other terms, namely,
a “nonpartnership item” and an “affected item.” A “nonpartnership item” is one that is
not a “partnership item.” 26 U.S.C. § 6231(a)(4). And an “affected item” is one that is
affected by a “partnership item.” 26 U.S.C. § 6231(a)5.
2008-5045 11
partners in Petaluma. Id. The partners increased their adjusted bases in Petaluma to
reflect the long options they contributed, but they did not reduce those bases to reflect
Petaluma’s assumption of their short options. Id. The partners subsequently withdrew
from Petaluma, which fully liquidated their interest in the partnership by distributing cash
and shares of Scient stock. Id. Prior to the end of the year, the partners sold their
stock, taking their adjusted bases in the distributed stock equivalent to their adjusted
bases in Petaluma immediately prior to the distribution. Id. Given the inflated adjusted
bases in the stock, these sales created substantial short-term capital losses that the
partners claimed on their federal tax returns. Id.The parties’ arguments on appeal in Petaluma were strikingly similar to those in
this case. As in the present case, Petaluma argued that outside basis is an affected
item, not a partnership item and, therefore, the Tax Court had no right to determine that
its partners’ outside bases were zero. Id. at 654. Also similar to this case, the
government conceded that outside basis is not a partnership item but then argued that
outside basis is an affected item whose elements are largely or entirely partnership
items. Id.
The D.C. Circuit agreed with Petaluma, stating that “the partners’ outside bases
are affected items, not partnership items. Unlike partnership items, affected items are
determined not at the partnership level, but at the individual partner level.” Id. The
court observed that not only are partnership items and affected items treated at different
levels, the assessment procedures are different. Id. at 655. In the case of a partnership
item, the IRS may directly assess the tax against the individual partner by making a
computational adjustment—applying the new tax treatment of all partnership items to
2008-5045 12
the partner’s return—and the partner must bring a refund claim to challenge the
computation. 26 U.S.C. § 6230(c)(1). However, if the partner’s liability relates to
affected items, the IRS must send a notice of deficiency to that partner, thereby initiating
a deficiency proceeding against him individually. 26 U.S.C. § 6230(a)(2)(A)(i); see
Desmet v. Comm’r of Internal Rev., 581 F.3d 297, 302 (6th Cir. 2009) (explaining that
the IRS has different procedures for making adjustments to a partner’s tax liability
depending on whether the item is a partnership item or an affected item).
The court concluded that under § 6226(f) the Tax Court did not have jurisdiction
to review the determination that the individual partners had no outside basis in
Petaluma. The court rejected the government’s contention that, although an affected
item, outside basis could be determined in the partnership-level proceeding. “The fact
that a determination seems obvious or easy does not expand the court’s jurisdiction
beyond what the statute provides. In other words, it does not matter how low the fruit
hangs when one is forbidden to pick it.” Id. at 655.
We find the D.C. Circuit’s reasoning persuasive and see no reason to depart
from it in this case. While the parties here are different, each of the Ervins’ outside
basis in Jade is an affected item and thus not determined at the partnership level. See
Schell v. United States, 598 F.3d 1378, 1381-82 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (“An example of an
‘affected item’ is a partner's tax basis in his partnership interest, which is affected by
partnership items such as partnership income or loss.”). We also agree with the D.C.
Circuit’s observation:
[N]othing about the concept of outside basis indicates that it is more
appropriately determined at the partnership level. If disregarding a
partnership leads ineluctably to the conclusion that its partners have no
outside basis, that should be just as obvious in partner-level proceedings
2008-5045 13
as it is in partnership-level proceedings. Moreover, with the invalidity of
the partnership conclusively established as a partnership-level
determination, there is little danger that outside basis will receive
inconsistent treatment at the individual partner level.
Petaluma, 591 F.3d at 655.
Because outside basis is not a “partnership item,” we conclude that the Court of
Federal Claims lacked jurisdiction to determine that the Ervins had no outside basis in
Jade.
As explained above, under § 6226(f), the trial court has jurisdiction over “the
applicability of any penalty . . . which relates to an adjustment to a partnership item.”
The penalty in this case was imposed on the underpayment of income tax due to the
gross valuation misstatement of the partners’ outside basis in the partnership. Outside
basis is an affected item, not a partnership item; thus, the penalty here relates to an
adjustment of an affected item, not a partnership item. Accordingly, the trial court did
not have jurisdiction over the applicability of this particular penalty.
Because it is possible that at least some portion of the penalties could have been
computed without relying on the partners’ outside bases, we conclude that the penalty
issue should be vacated and remanded. See id. at 655-56 (remanding for a
determination as to whether some of the penalties could have been assessed without
partner-level computations). Remand proceedings should determine whether any
penalties could have been assessed without relying on the Ervins’ outside bases.
D
Finally, Jade argues that the Court of Federal Claims should have considered the
Ervin’s reasonable cause defenses, asserting that Temp. Treas. Reg. § 301.6221-1T(c),
(d) is invalid. Because we vacate that portion of the Court of Federal Claims’ judgment
2008-5045 14
affirming the penalties assessed against the Ervins, the validity challenge to the
temporary regulation is moot at this time, and we decline to reach it. See United States
v. Alaska S.S. Co., 253 U.S. 113, 116 (1920) (“[I]t is a settled principle in this court that
it will determine only actual matters in controversy essential to the decision of the
particular case before it.”); see also United States v. UPS Customhouse Brokerage, Inc.
575 F.3d 1376, 1383 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (vacating as moot the issue of whether Customs
could impose penalties aggregating more than $30,000 under 19 C.F.R. § 111.91 when
the case was being remanded for Customs to conduct a proper analysis of whether
there was in fact a violation of 19 U.S.C. § 1641); Elkem Metals Co. v. United States,
468 F.3d 795, 803 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (concluding that because an amount was properly
excluded from constructed value, the issue of whether the party correctly reported that
amount was moot and need not be decided). While the Court of Federal Claims could
conclude on remand that some of the penalties could have been assessed without
relying on the Ervins’ outside basis and thus putting this issue back into play, the
opposite is also true. Although these issues are important to the parties and may
become relevant later in this case, deciding them now would be premature.
Accordingly, we vacate that portion of the Court of Federal Claims’ judgment
concluding that the Ervins’ partner-level defenses cannot be brought at the partnership
level.
III
Because the Court of Federal Claims correctly concluded that the contribution of
the spread transactions to Jade lacked economic substance, we affirm the court’s denial
of Jade’s petition for readjustment of partnership items. However, because the Court of
2008-5045 15
Federal Claims lacked jurisdiction to review the penalties imposed on the underpayment
of income tax due to the gross valuation misstatement of the Ervins’ outside bases in
Jade, we vacate that portion of the court’s judgment affirming the penalties assessed
against the Ervins. Additionally, we remand this issue for the court to determine
whether any part of the penalties could have been assessed without relying on the
Ervins’ outside bases and thus falling within the court’s jurisdiction. Finally, we vacate
as moot that portion of the Court of Federal Claims’ judgment upholding the validity of
Temp. Treas. Reg. § 301.6221-1T(c), (d).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART, REVERSED-IN-PART, VACATED-IN-PART.
COSTS
Each party shall bear its own costs.
2008-5045 16