During her first two weeks at the clinic, under the supervision of Audrey Patten, clinical instructor and acting director of the Tax Litigation Clinic, Madison Wulf Elbich ’24 filed an amicus brief urging the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a decision that could have significant impacts on low-income tax payers. The brief argued that the Sixth Circuit should overturn a decision that a check sent by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to a Tennessee couple rendered the couple’s challenge to certain tax liability moot. If the court upholds a ruling that the agency ended the case by writing the couple a check mid-way through litigation, the agency could block similar suits from Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) recipients. Mooting EITC suits could result in the courthouse doors being shut to many low-income taxpayers who seek to challenge the IRS’s decision to deny them EITC eligibility.
In this Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs blog post, Madison talks about her experience working on the brief and insights that she had while doing so.