By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//January 13, 2014//
United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
Civil
Tax — statute of limitations — prevailing party
A party who prevails over the IRS may only recover litigation costs for IRS actions occurring within two years of the claim.
“In this appeal, Kovacs is trying to erase the consequences of Kovacs V and to avoid the fact that only a small remnant of her case remains. She would like us to rule that, notwithstanding that fact, she may recover all the litigation costs she accrued throughout this saga. That, however, would flatly contradict our holding in Kovacs V that ‘[e]ach of the IRS’s attempts to collect taxes from Kovacs was a discrete act rather than a continuing violation or part of the original violation.’ 614 F.3d at 676. Although we sympathize with Kovacs’s frustration at the IRS’s initial errors, the statute of limitations stands in the way of broader relief. The bankruptcy court, affirmed by the district court, correctly held that Kovacs may recover only $3,750 in litigation costs.”
Affirmed.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Adelman, J., Wood, J