Ex-Atlanta Braves Players’ $48 Million Tax Appeal Fought by IRS

Former Atlanta Braves players John Smoltz and Ryan Klesko should see their partnership’s $47.6 million tax appeal fail because it didn’t identify any errors in the lower court’s accounting for a conservationist charitable deduction, the IRS told the Eleventh Circuit.

Smoltz and Klesko’s partnership, Buckelew Farm LLC, was found by the Tax Court to have overstated its available deduction from granting a 1,500-acre conservation easement in central Georgia to the Southeast Regional Land Conservancy Inc. Buckelew Farm argued on appeal that the land use determination undergirding its easement valuation was legal.

But the Tax Court’s decision to reduce Buckelew Farm’s ...