United States of America and Joseph R. Rouleau, Special Agent of the Internal Revenue Service v. Gideon Goldman, Certified Public Accountant

This is an appeal from an order of the district court denying in part enforcement of an Internal Revenue summons.

Special Agent Joseph Rouleau sought certain records from accountant Gideon Goldman pertaining to Goldman’s client taxpayer Haim Mizrahi. When Goldman refused to appear pursuant to an IRS summons, Rouleau filed a petition to enforce the summons. The district court issued a show cause order to Goldman and held a hearing on the matter. The court ordered that the summons be enforced with certain exceptions. Two of those exceptions form the basis of this appeal:

The question presented is whether the district court was correct in concluding that the Government had not met its light burden in establishing that the records in question were relevant and that the Government did not possess them. After examining the district court’s actions under the appropriate “clearly erroneous” standard, we affirm.

I. Standard of Review

A preliminary matter to be considered is what standard this court should apply in reviewing a district court’s decision not to enforce an Internal Revenue summons. The Tenth Circuit faced this issue in United States v. Coopers & Lybrand, 550 F.2d 615 (10th…