Phillips v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 83 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he plain words of the statute clearly extend the § 6013(b) limitations only to taxpayers who have previously filed returns. Section 6013 is written in the form of a general rule and a series of specific exceptions to that rule. The general rule is laid out in § 6013(a): that a husband and wife may choose to file either a separate or a joint tax return. The statute then imposes two sets of limitations on that right. The first set of limitations, contained in section (a), applies generally to all taxpayers. It is clear and uneontested that none of those limitations applies in the case at bar. The second set of limitations, those contained in section (b), applies only to a smaller subset of taxpayers: those filing, as the section heading states, a “[j]oint return after filing separate return.” 26 U.S.C. § 6013 (b). Congress could readily have extended the § 6013(b) limitations to taxpayers who had not filed any returns at all and were then served with a notice of deficiency, but it is clear from the statute’s wording that it did not.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 412 F. Supp. 2d 1201 - United States v. Davenport