In this case petitioner, deeming itself exempt from income and excess profits taxes, failed to file any tax returns for the years 1932 to 1936, inclusive. The Commissioner assessed petitioner for the taxes for those years, with penalties, and the Tax Court has sustained the assessment as to the income taxes and attendant penalties. Petitioner, within the three months allowed for that purpose by § 1142 of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C.A. Int.Rev.Code, § 1142, sought review of the Tax Court's decision by a petition for review filed with the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
By § 1141(a) of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C.A. Int.Rev.Code, § 1141(a), entitled 'Jurisdiction', the Circuit Courts of Appeals and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia are given 'exclusive jurisdiction to review the decisions' of the Tax Court. Subsection (b)(1), entitled 'Venue', provides that 'such decisions may be reviewed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the circuit in which is located the collector's office to which was made the return of the tax in respect of which the liability arises or, if no return was made, then by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.' Since petitioner filed no return, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was the court of proper venue under this subsection. If petitioner had made a return, it would have been required to file it with a collector whose office was within the Sixth Circuit, that of the court below; in that event, that court would have been the court of proper venue. The Code provides further, in subsection (b)(2): 'Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 1, such decisions may be reviewed by any circuit court of appeals * * * which may be designated by the Commissioner and the taxpayer by stipulation in writing.'
The Commissioner suggested to petitioner that as it had filed no returns for the years in question and no written stipulation had been entered into as permitted by subsection (b)(2), the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was without 'jurisdiction'. In response to this suggestion, petitioner and the Commissioner, after the expiration of the three months' period in which a petition for review could be filed, entered into such a written stipulation, designating the Court the Appeals for the Sixth Circuit as the court to review the decision of the Tax Court. The stipulation reserved to the Commissioner the right to challenge its timeliness and legal effect.
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, on the Commissioner's motion, dismissed the petition for review for want of jurisdiction. 141 F.2d 636. We granted certiorari, 323 U.S. 690, 65 S.Ct. 39, to resolve an asserted conflict of the decision below, with that of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Wegener v. Commissioner, 119 F.2d 49. The question presented is whether the court below had jurisdiction of the petition for review of the decision of the Tax Court, notwithstanding petitioner's failure to file the stipulation during the three months period, within which review of the Tax Court's decision could be sought.