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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 18-11847
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 9:18-cv-80150-RLR
PRESLEY AND PRESLEY, PA,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Defendant - Appellee.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(February 5, 2019)
Before TJOFLAT, JORDAN, and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
This is the third of three related appeals challenging summonses the Internal
Revenue Service (“IRS”) sent to a bank requesting account records in the course of
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investigating the federal income-tax liabilities of Michael Presley, Cynthia Presley,
Presley and Presley, P.A., Presley Law and Associates, P.A., and BMP Family
Limited Partnership, which includes as partners Michael, Cynthia, and other
members of the Presley family. This appeal, for instance, concerns an IRS
summons issued in February 2018 relating to the 2015 income-tax liabilities of
Presley and Presley, P.A. In each of the three cases, the taxpayer or taxpayers at
issue petitioned the district court to quash the IRS summonses on the ground that at
least some of the requested records revealed clients’ private financial information.
The district court separately dismissed all three cases, and we have affirmed the
court twice already. See Presley v. United States, 895 F.3d 1284 (11th Cir. 2018);
BMP Family Ltd. P’ship v. United States, 741 F. App’x 764 (11th Cir. 2018). We
do so again.
The parties have stipulated that our decision in Presley is “dispositive of this
case” because each of the arguments raised by the appellant in this case—Presley
and Presley, P.A.—was considered and rejected in Presley. These arguments are
(1) that the Fourth Amendment obligates the government to demonstrate probable
cause because the appellant’s clients had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the
records held by the bank; and (2) that the IRS was obligated to proceed under 26
U.S.C. § 7609(f) by issuing John Doe summonses to the appellant’s clients and
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petitioning the district court for an ex parte hearing before obtaining the account
records. Presley, 895 F.3d at 1287–88.
Presley rejects these arguments. Briefly stated, we held that probable cause
was not required because the clients lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in
financial records held by the bank, that the IRS summonses were reasonable under
the Fourth Amendment, and that the procedures required by § 7609(f) did not
apply. Id. at 1291–95. We further rejected the alternative argument that the Right
to Financial Privacy Act (“RFPA”), 12 U.S.C. § 3401–3422, prohibited
enforcement of the IRS summonses at issue. Id. at 1292 (noting that the RFPA
“explicitly provides that ‘[n]othing in this chapter prohibits the disclosure of
financial records in accordance with procedures authorized by Title 26’”) (quoting
12 U.S.C. § 3413(c)). So we held that the IRS could enforce the summonses.
The appellant here has raised no argument that was not considered and
rejected in Presley. Despite this, the appellant suggests that, even if we follow
Presley, which of course we must, we should remand to allow it to amend its
petition to bring a challenge under the RFPA. But not only would this be improper
as a procedural matter, given that this ground was not raised below, it also would
conflict with Presley, which determined that the “RFPA d[id] not help” the
appellants in that case. Id. at 1292. It does not appear that the underlying
circumstances here are materially different from those in Presley. Accordingly, we
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affirm the dismissal of the appellant’s petition to quash for the reasons explained
more fully in Presley.
AFFIRMED.
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