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34 B.T.A. 925

Epstein v. Commissioner

United States Board of Tax Appeals

Decided August 11, 1936

United States Board of Tax Appeals · decided 1936-08-11

The Board has jurisdiction and, when a petition is filed, it is its duty to review the administrative action of the Commissioner in determining a deficiency and penalties. It is not relieved of this duty by the fact that, in a criminal proceeding, the taxpayer was sentenced to pay and did pay the amount determined as the tax by the court.

Relies on Mitchell v. Commissioner · Brecher v. Commissioner · Scharton v. Commissioner

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1936-08-11

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently January 1955

1 federal appellate ·

10193619401950decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1*926OPINION.

Murdock:

¶2The petitioner argues that all questions between the Commissioner and the taxpayer relating to taxes and penalties for 1925 have been settled in a criminal proceeding. The taxpayer there pleaded guilty to an indictment charging him with an attempt to evade income tax upon his income for 1925. He was sentenced to pay the tax of $5,679.65 and he has paid it. The court was not concerned with the penalties here involved.

¶3The present proceeding before the Board is quite different from the criminal proceeding above described. Charles E. Mitchell, 32 B. T. A. 1093. The Board has been established to review the action of the Commissioner in determining deficiencies. It reviews and approves or disapproves this administrative act. If the Commissioner acted properly in determining the deficiency and claiming the penalty in a case before the Board, the Board must affirm the administrative action of the Commissioner. The Board then says that the Commissioner did not err in the performance of his duty in so far as he determined that the tax and penalty were due at the time he sent his notice of deficiency. The payment of the tax after the mailing of the notice in no way changes the function of the Board. It still reviews the action of the Commissioner as set forth in his notice of deficiency. Payment is a matter between the Commissioner and the taxpayer which does not change the fact that the determination of the Commissioner as expressed in his deficiency notice was either correct or incorrect and does not change the duty of the Board to decide whether or not that determination was correct. Here the only evidence before the Board indicates clearly that the Commissioner did not err in determining the deficiency and claiming the penalty. Pincus Brecher, 27 B. T. A. 1108. The criminal proceeding does not relieve the Board of its function and duty to review the determination of the Commissioner. William R. Scharton, 32 B. T. A. 459.

¶4Decision will he entered for the resfondent.

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