Felix Frankfurter

“ If the Commissioner chooses not to stand on his own formal or detailed requirements, it would be making an empty abstraction, and not a practical safeguard, of a regulation to allow the Commissioner to invoke technical objections after he has investigated the merits of a claim and taken action upon it. Even tax administration does not as a matter of principle preclude considerations of fairness.
Since, however, the tight net which the Treasury Regulations fashion is for the protection of the revenue, courts should not unduly help disobedient refund claimants to slip through it. ”

“ An additional argument of the petitioner need not detain us long. It urges that taking the claims filed by Niagara and petitioner together, they furnish all the date required by the regulations. But it is not enough that somewhere under the Commissioner's roof is the information which might enable him to pass on a claim for refund. The protection of the revenue authorizes the Commissioner to demand information in a particular form, and he is entitled to insist that the form be observed so as to advise him expeditiously and accurately of the true nature of the claim. ”

“ We agree with the Tax Court that the evidence is insufficient to establish waiver. The letter from the General Deputy Collector requesting petitioner's president to allow examination of the 'records of the Middleport Flour Mills, Inc., and Angelus Flour Mills, Inc.' was in connection with the claim which had been filed by the Niagara Milling Company. In view of the confusing identity of interest of the two companies, it is not unreasonable to attribute this inquiry, as did the Tax Court, to Niagara's claim and not to petitioner's. ”