Tax Court’s Shutdown-Related Trial Cancellations Add to Backlog

The US Tax Court’s move to cancel two weeks of trials due to the government shutdown is threatening to jam up the already busy system.

The canceled trial sessions will likely spur further delays in litigation as a skeleton crew of IRS attorneys—still on the job amid shutdown-related furloughs and several rounds of Trump administration downsizing efforts earlier this year—tries to triage cases.

“This is bad news for law-abiding citizens,” Rod Rosenstein, deputy attorney general in President Donald Trump’s first administration who’s now partner at Baker McKenzie, said in an email. “The Tax Court already has a huge case backlog ...