Hendrickson's Heroes (maybe): Elmer J. Buckardt

[Famspear]

Elmer Jon Buckardt, retired airline pilot, is possibly one of Hendrickson's Heroes, although he has used other scams as well (such as the "861 argument"). The current case is at docket # 022131-10. The bench opinion was rendered on Sept 15, 2011, by the United States Tax Court (Judge Diane L. Kroupa).

In this case, the Court noted that Buckardt and his wife filed separate returns for the year 2008. For that year, he admitted that he received $98,600 in pension benefits with respect to his prior service for Northwest Airlines. He filed a 2008 return with a Form 4852 (which sounds like Hendrickson's Cracking the Code scam), falsely claiming that the income amount with respect to his $98,600 pension benefit was "zero." (Specifically, the Tax Court noted, that Buckardt had attached "Form 4852, the standard fare by which tax protesters zero out their income......" Obviously, both the IRS and the Tax Court can see Hendrickson's Heroes coming a mile away.)

The IRS asserted a tax deficiency of $19,299 and an accuracy related penalty of $3,860. These were upheld by the Court, which held that Elmer had presented "only frivolous and groundless arguments".

The Court also imposed a section 6673 penalty for the full amount: $25,000.

The Court noted that Elmer was no stranger to the Court. Other cases:

1. case no. 10591-04;

2. case no. 16074-04;

3. case no. 27949-07. In this one, Buckardt and his wife filed separate returns for the three years in this case; his returns involved over $118,000 in taxes and penalties, where Buckardt used, among other things, the "861 argument". The Court did not impose a section 6673 penalty in this case, and (miracle!) he actually had one argument that was not frivolous. See the decision, T.C. Memo 2010-145, at:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case? ... 61&scilh=0

and:
4. case no. 29924-09L.

[AndyK]

4. case no. 29924-09L.

Those "L" cases are real bummers. "L" as in CoLlection Due Process reviews.

90%+ of the time, the plaintiff has either failed to respond to the original deficiency notice by filing a Tax Court petition OR is fighting the government's intent to collect on a $5,000 FrivPen.

Taxpayers (especially TPs) rarely win CDP cases except to the extent of having the case remanded to Appeals for re-evaluation or (rarely) telling the IRS to terminate collection actions and go back to square one because the Service couldn't prove a Notice of Deficiency was properly sent.