## Facts

- The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued a civil administrative summons to Ulis and Phyllis Jones while investigating their federal tax liabilities.
- The Joneses filed a petition in federal district court to quash the summons.
- The Joneses alleged the summons was issued in bad faith because the IRS agent who issued it had supposedly already decided to recommend criminal prosecution based on the Joneses’ tax returns.
- Relying on United States v. LaSalle National Bank, the Joneses argued the IRS was improperly using its civil summons authority for a criminal purpose.
- The Joneses also claimed that enforcing the summons would violate their rights under the Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment.

## Issues

1. Whether the IRS summons should be quashed as an abuse of process based on the Joneses’ claim that the issuing agent had already decided to recommend criminal prosecution.
2. Whether an agent’s alleged intent to recommend prosecution, without evidence that the IRS as an institution had abandoned a civil tax purpose (or made a Justice Department referral), is enough to show bad faith under LaSalle.
3. Whether enforcement of the summons, on these facts, would violate the Joneses’ Fourth Amendment or Fifth Amendment rights.

## Decision

- The court denied the Joneses’ petition to quash and permitted enforcement of the IRS summons.
- Applying the Supreme Court’s summons-enforcement framework, the court treated the IRS as entitled to enforcement upon a prima facie showing of proper purpose and procedure, with the burden shifting to the taxpayers to show an improper purpose or abuse of process.
- The court rejected the argument that the summons was invalid merely because the issuing agent allegedly intended to recommend prosecution; that allegation did not show that the IRS, as an institution, was using the summons solely to build a criminal case.
- The court rejected the Joneses’ Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment objections to enforcement in this civil summons proceeding.

## Legal Principles

- Under United States v. Powell, the IRS makes a prima facie case for enforcement of a summons by showing: (1) a legitimate purpose, (2) relevance of the inquiry, (3) the information is not already in the IRS’s possession, and (4) required administrative steps were followed; the burden then shifts to the taxpayer to show bad faith or abuse of the court’s process.
- Under United States v. LaSalle National Bank, the validity of an IRS summons turns on the IRS’s institutional good faith: a summons is improper only if the IRS has abandoned civil tax determination or collection and is using the summons power solely to further a criminal prosecution (particularly after referral to the Department of Justice); an individual agent’s subjective motive, standing alone, is not enough.
- Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment objections do not bar enforcement of an IRS civil summons when the summons is issued within statutory authority and the taxpayer does not show a valid constitutional basis to resist compliance in the summons-enforcement setting.

## Conclusion

Jones v. United States held that the Joneses did not justify quashing the IRS’s civil summons based on allegations that the issuing agent had already decided to recommend criminal prosecution, because LaSalle requires proof of institutional abandonment of civil tax purposes rather than a single agent’s claimed intent, and the court also rejected the Joneses’ Fourth and Fifth Amendment challenges and enforced the summons.


Jones v. United States, 791 F. Supp. 760 (1992)