Robert J. And Nancy J. Huettl v. United States

Taxpayers, Robert and Nancy Huettl, appeal the dismissal of their suit for tax refund. The district court ruled the action was barred by the statute of limitations for bringing refund claims in district court, I.R.C. § 6532(a)(1), and we affirm.

Taxpayers filed a joint federal income tax return for 1968 on or about April 1, 1969, and, on April 4, 1972, filed a refund claim alleging that a foreign tax credit carryover was available for the year 1968. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) disallowed the claim on July 23, 1974, for the reason that, inter alia, 1 a three-year statute *241 of limitations for filing with the IRS barred the claim. See I.R.C. § 6511(a).

In 1978, we decided United States v. Woodmansee, 578 F.2d 1302 (9th Cir. 1978), and implied that the ten-year limitations period of I.R.C. § 6511(d)(3)(A), 3 and not the three-year limitations period of I.R.C. § 6511(a), applied to the filing of claims such as taxpayers’ with the IRS. Upon the assumption that the Woodmansee decision changed the legal posture of their claim, taxpayers made two filings on August 25, 1978. One was a suit for refund with the district court based on the disallowance of the first claim by the…

dissenting:

I respectfully dissent. Any claim for a tax refund lodged with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) must meet three legal requirements:

Treas.Reg. § 301.6402-2(b), T.D. 7484, 42 FR 22143 (1977).

My reading of the record on appeal and the respective answers of the parties to a specific inquiry of this panel dictates a conclusion that the Huettls’ first claim of refund under IRS, §§ 901 and 904 was rejected by the IRS on the sole legal ground of the bar of the three-year statute of limitations, IRC, § 6511(a). The IRS, by its own admission, never considered the worth of the substantive claim for refund. In this case, the Huettls’ first claim did not assert any appropriate statute of limitations. The IRS bypassed its consideration of the merits of the refund claim and erroneously imposed the bar of the three-year statute of limitations. The majority does not hold otherwise, or else the Huettls would be frustrated by the doctrine of res judicata.

The Huettls’ second claim for a refund based upon an asserted entitlement to a foreign tax credit carryover was in fact identical to the substance of their first claim for such credit carryover; however, the second claim…

675 F.2d 239 82-1 USTC P 9349 Robert J. and Nancy J. HUETTL, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant-Appellee. No. 80-4150. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted Nov. 9, 1981. Decided April 19, 1982. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. W. Keith Woodmansee, W. Keith Woodmansee Law Corp., Walnut Creek, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellants. Steven F. Frahn, Washington, D. C., argued, for defendant-appellee; Michael L. Paup, M. Carr Ferguson, Gilbert E. Andrews, Ann B. Durney, Washington, D. C., Jay R. Weill, Asst. U. S. Atty., San Francisco, Cal., on brief. Before KENNEDY and BOOCHEVER, Circuit Judges, and EAST, * District Judge. KENNEDY, Circuit Judge: 1 Taxpayers, Robert and Nancy Huettl, appeal the dismissal of their suit for tax refund. The district court ruled the action was barred by the statute of limitations for bringing refund claims in district court, I.R.C. § 6532(a)(1), and we affirm. 2 Taxpayers filed a joint federal income tax return for 1968 on or about April 1, 1969, and, on April 4, 1972, filed a refund claim alleging that a foreign tax credit carryover was available…