A case involving businessman Billy Joe "Red" McCombs, known to thousands of South Texas drivers for his eponymous car dealerships, is headed for the U.S. Supreme Court. On March 25, the justices granted the federal government’s petition for writ of certiorari in the case that involves McCombs, who’s also the former owner of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team and founder of Clear Channel Communications. The tax matters partner in two partnerships that include McCombs first filed the case, United States v. Gary Woods, as tax matters partner of Tesoro Drive Partners, et al, in federal court for the Western District of Texas.
According to both the government’s cert petition, filed Nov. 6, 2012, and the brief filed in response on Feb. 4 by the tax matters partner, the dispute arose after December 2004, when the Internal Revenue Service proposed to bar certain types of transactions that it deemed lacked economic substance. It also proposed penalties on taxpayers engaged in those transactions.
