Beard v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE

EVANS, Circuit Judge.

This case presents the seemingly simple question of whether an overstatement of basis in ownership interests is an omission of income under the Internal Revenue Code Section 6501(e) 1 , thereby triggering a six-year, rather than the standard three-year, statute of limitations. But things are not always as they appear — the answer to the seemingly simple question requires a rather lengthy discussion of a case decided more than a half-century ago, in 1958, the year Elvis Presley was inducted into the army.

At issue here is a variant on a Son-of-BOSS (Bond and Option Sales…