Announcement Relating to Court Decisions

It is the policy of the Internal Revenue Service to announce at an early date whether it will follow the holdings in certain cases. An Action on Decision is the document making such an announcement. An Action on Decision will be issued at the discretion of the Service only on unappealed issues decided adverse to the government. Generally, an Action on Decision is issued where its guidance would be helpful to Service personnel working with the same or similar issues. Unlike a Treasury Regulation or a Revenue Ruling, an Action on Decision is not an affirmative statement of Service position. It is not intended to serve as public guidance and may not be cited as precedent.

Actions on Decisions shall be relied upon within the Service only as conclusions applying the law to the facts in the particular case at the time the Action on Decision was issued. Caution should be exercised in extending the recommendation of the Action on Decision to similar cases where the facts are different. Moreover, the recommendation in the Action on Decision may be superseded by new legislation, regulations, rulings, cases, or Actions on Decisions.

Prior to 1991, the Service published acquiescence or nonacquiescence only in certain regular Tax

Court opinions. The Service has expanded its acquiescence program to include other civil tax cases where guidance is determined to be helpful. Accordingly, the Service now may acquiesce or nonacquiesce in the holdings of memorandum Tax Court opinions, as well as those of the United States District Courts, Claims Court, and Circuit Courts of Appeal. Regardless of the court deciding the case, the recommendation of any Action on Decision will be published in the Internal Revenue Bulletin.

The recommendation in every Action on Decision will be summarized as acquiescence, acquiescence in result only, or nonacquiescence. Both ‘‘acquiescence’’ and ‘‘acquiescence in result only’’ mean that the Service accepts the holding of the court in a case and that the Service will follow it in disposing of cases with the same controlling facts. However, ‘‘acquiescence’’ indicates neither approval nor disapproval of the reasons assigned by the court for its conclusions; whereas, ‘‘acquiescence in result only’’ indicates disagreement or concern with some or all of those reasons. Nonacquiescence signifies that, although no further review was sought, the Service does not agree with the holding of the court and, generally, will not follow the decision in disposing of

cases involving other taxpayers. In reference to an opinion of a circuit court of appeals, a nonacquiescence indicates that the Service will not follow the holding on a nationwide basis. However, the Service will recognize the precedential impact of the opinion on cases arising within the venue of the deciding circuit.

The announcements published in the weekly Internal Revenue Bulletins are consolidated semiannually and annually. The semiannual consolidation appears in the first Bulletin for July and in the Cumulative Bulletin for the first half of the year, and the annual consolidation appears in the first Bulletin for the following January and in the Cumulative Bulletin for the last half of the year.

The Commissioner ACQUIESCE in the following decisions:

William H. and Patricia Adair v. Com- missioner, ¹ T.C. Memo. 1995 – 493

The Commissioner does NOT ACQUIESCE in the following decisions:

Estate of Goree v. Commissioner, ² T.C. 1994 – 331 Robert B. and Eleanor Risman v. Commissioner, ³ 100 T.C. 191 (1993) Anthony Teong-Chan and Rosanna W. Gaw v. Commissioner, ⁴ 45 F.3d 461 (D.C. Cir. 1995)

1Acquiescence relating to whether petitioner who performed services for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a transferee transferred and paid by the U.S. Department of the Army was entitled to the foreign earned income exclusion under section 911 of the Code.

2Nonacquiescence relating to whether under Estate of Bosch v. Commissioner, 387 U.S. 456 (1967), the Tax Court erred in applying an appellate standard of review to a lower state court factual determination instead of reviewing the question de novo.

3Nonacquiescence relating to whether a remittance forwarded to the Service with a Form 4868 constitutes a payment of tax or a deposit in the nature of a cash bond for purposes of the period of limitations for seeking a refund of such remittance.

4Nonacquiescence relating to when the period for filing a Tax Court petition begins to run if the notice of deficiency is mailed to the taxpayers’ last known address and the Service knows or should know the taxpayers will not receive the noice at their last known address.

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