Supreme Court Again Avoids Resolving Split Of Authority On Conditional Summons Enforcement

When the IRS issues a summons for testimony or documents and the summoned party refuses to testify or turn over the documents, the IRS must go to federal district court to get the court to enforce the summons. Unless the summoned party presents a valid objection (e.g., attorney-client privilege), the court usually orders the party to comply with the summons. Some courts, however, have placed conditions on the IRS when enforcing a summons.

For example, in the recent case of United States v. Jose, 71 F.3d 1484 (9th Cir. 1995), the district court required that the IRS notify the taxpayer five days in advance before showing any documents obtained through the summons to any division of the IRS outside the civil examination division. The district court was concerned that the IRS might show the documents to its criminal investigation division, despite the IRS' current position that it was merely