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U.S. Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court is an appellate court and the highest court in the nation. Article III of the Constitution created the Supreme Court and extended to it judicial power "to all cases of law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties..." The Supreme Court meets and hears cases only in Washington D.C. It is comprised of a nine-justice panel; all nine judges hear every case that the court agrees to consider. It does not conduct jury trials.

All decisions of appellate courts may be further appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Unlike the circuit courts, which must rule on every case that is appealed from the trial courts, the Supreme Court does not have to accept every case that is appealed from the circuit courts. The Supreme Court decides which cases it wants to review by granting a "writ of certiorari." Granting the writ of certiorari simply means that that at least four of the nine justices on the court feel the case is important enough for them to review it. Conversely, denying a writ of certiorari means only that the court does not think the case is important enough for it to review at that time. It does not reverse or in any other way directly affect the decision of the lower court. The lower court's decision stands, but one cannot infer that the decision necessarily correct or that it should be followed in the future by other taxpayers whose situations are similar. Review will, however, strengthen the authority or importance of the case in the hierarchy of primary authorities. The Supreme Court limits its review of tax cases to those of major importance or to those in which the decisions of the circuit courts conflict.

If the Supreme Court agrees to review a decision, its interpretation and application of the law are the final authority, and all lower courts, taxpayers, and the IRS must follow its decision. If Congress is unhappy with the Court's interpretation and application of the law Congress might repeal the challenged statute, or the federal administration might refuse to fund or enforce the underlying law and related activities. Neither a citizen nor the government can appeal a Supreme Court decision.

Locating and Understanding Supreme Court Citations

Supreme Court decisions can be found in several different publications. CCH includes such cases in the United States Tax Cases service, abbreviated USTC. RIA publishes them in the American Federal Tax Reports, either series AFTR or AFTR2d. The Government Printing Office (GPO) publishes the United States Supreme Court Reports, which contains all of the tax and nontax decisions of the Court. In common citation convention, references to this service are abbreviated as "US." West Publishing includes all Supreme Court decisions in the Supreme Court Reports, abbreviated SCt. And the Lawyer's Cooperative Publishing Company includes all Supreme Court decisions in the United States Reports Lawyer's Edition, abbreviated LEd.

Supreme Court citation

Ward v. United States, 400 U.S. 1008, 91 SCt 567, 27 LEd 2d 621 (1971) (denying cert.) where

Ward is the name of the case
400 is the volume number of the United States Supreme Court Reports (U.S.)
1008 is the page number of the volume

91 is the volume number of West's Supreme Court Reports (SCt)
567 is the page number of the volume

27 is the volume of the United States Reports Lawyer's Edition (LEd)
621 is the page number of the volume
1971 is the year the case was brought before the supreme court
denying cert. indicates that the Supreme Court did not review the case

The following table is a summary of the different reporter abbreviations used for citations along with the publisher and the type of decision.