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Constitutional Law Keyed to Choper
Freytag v. Commissioner
Citation:
501 U.S. 868 (1991)Facts
The petitioners, Thomas Freytag and other taxpayers, invested in a tax shelter and claimed deductions that were subsequently disallowed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. Their consolidated cases, involving approximately $1.5 billion in sham deductions, were assigned to Special Trial Judge Carleton D. Powell by the Chief Judge of the United States Tax Court under the authority granted by 26 U.S.C. § 7443A. After the trial but before the Special Trial Judge submitted his proposed opinion, the petitioners consented to the assignment. The Chief Judge subsequently adopted the Special Trial Judge’s opinion as the opinion of the Tax Court. The petitioners then challenged the constitutionality of the assignment, arguing that the appointment of special trial judges by the Chief Judge of the Tax Court violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.
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