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U.S. District Courts

The U.S. District Courts are another trial-level forum that hears tax cases, however, the District Courts hear cases involving legal issues based upon the entire United States Code, not just the Internal Revenue Code. District Court judges are generalists, they do not specialize in tax law. Unlike the U.S. Tax Court, a taxpayer may only take their case to a District Court after they have paid the disputed tax liability; thus, in the typical District Court taxation case, the taxpayer sues the government, after the appropriate waiting period, for a refund of the disputed tax liability.

District Courts are located throughout the United States, each assigned a specific geographical area. A district can be as small as one city or as large as an entire state. In most states, the federal District Court is held in several locations, which are specified by federal statute. A complete breakdown of the District Courts and their associated geographic area can be found under Title 28 of the United States Code. Typically, the taxpayer will request a hearing before the District Court that has jurisdiction in the location where he or she lives or conducts business. The taxpayer can request a trial jury in a District Court.

Because the District Courts are general in nature and do not specialize in tax matters, their decisions can vary significantly among the districts, or over time. It is important to examine the decisions carefully to assess their probable use as a precedent.

Locating and Understanding District Court Citations

The U.S. government does not officially publish the decisions of the District Courts in any reporter. However, West Publishing Co. is treated as the official publisher, and any citation to decisions from the District Courts should include a citation to the "Federal Supplement Series" (F. Supp). This series contains all decisions of the District Courts designated for publication, including those for nontax cases.

Both the Research Institute of America (RIA) and Commerce Clearing House (CCH) publish special tax case reporters that include only tax decisions selected from all of the decisions of the federal courts. These reporters are not the same as the Tax Court reporters and should not be confused with them. RIA's specialized tax reporter is titled "American Federal Tax Reports," and is abbreviated as "AFTR" in citations. Currently the second series of this reporter is in use and the abbreviation "AFTR2d" is more commonly used. The "2d" indicates that the cases in the reporter relate to the 1954 and 1986 Internal Revenue Code rather than to any previous revenue code or act. CCH's specialized tax case reporter is known as "U.S. Tax Cases," and is abbreviated as "USTC" in citations. This should not be confused with the abbreviation for the U.S. Tax Court, which is abbreviated as "T.C."

Complete citations for a tax case will include references to all three reporters. Each citation will include the specific District Court that heard the case and the year in which the opinion was issued. If more than one volume of a specific reporter was issued in any year the volume number will be included in the citation.

District Court Citation:

Burns v. U.S., 174 F. Supp. 203, 59-2 USTC ¶9514, 3 AFTR2d 1520 (N.D. Ohio 1959), where
Burns is the name of the case
174 is the volume number for the Federal Supplement Series (F. Supp.)
203 is the page number in that volume
59-2 is the volume number for CCH's U.S. Tax Cases (USTC)
¶9514 is the paragraph number in volume 59-2
3 is the volume number for the American Federal Tax Reports, second series (AFTR2d)
1520 is the page number of the volume
N.D. Ohio 1959 is the specific district in which the case was heard and the year