Pacific Fisheries v. United States

BACKGROUND

On April 23, 2004, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) served two administrative third-party summonses on Bank of America. The first summons requested information for the years 1995 to 2000 on an account held by Pacific Fisheries. The second summons requested the same information for two accounts held by Konstantin Voloshenko, an employee of Pacific Fisheries.

Both summonses were issued pursuant to a request by the Russian government under a tax treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation. See Convention Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fis- cal Evasion with Respect to Taxes on Income and Capital, art. 25, U.S.-Russ., June 17, 1992, S. Treaty Doc. No. 102-39 (1993), 1992 WL 608527, available at http://www.irs.gov/ pub/irs-trty/russia.pdf. The Russian government requested these records as part of its tax investigation of Voloshenko.

The IRS claims that it attempted to serve summons notices on the taxpayers, but the parties dispute whether either Pacific Fisheries or Voloshenko was properly served. In any event, 4366 PACIFIC FISHERIES INC. v. UNITED STATES…