spouse because she had meaningfully participated in the trial on the merits of the underlying tax we believe that that ruling is clearly erroneous and that she not participate in the meaningfully participate in the underlying case first she had no knowledge at that time that she law identifying meaningful participation she didn't sign any documents she was not posed she did not meet with any revenue agents or tha any any level of authority and she had no knowledge of the trial documents at the trial of the case her attorney went with certain through with her each of the documents in in the underlying case and she stated that she had never seen those before her first time seeing them was at the innocent spouse trial the only thing she did was sit at the party steeple and say nothing she didn't testify i had no just did nothing  a claim because she meaningfully participated in the tax court litigation standard under the southern circuit rules to favor of the particular there's there's no disagreement that a joint return was filed the understatement was due to the business operations of the and entertainment and that was that was the sole source of the deficiency in the case  there was there was no reason for mrs rogers to know anything about those  prancer rogers holds numerous advanced degrees including a logic very own participated in family property and businesses she shared in managing family finances and she reviewed and discussed with her husband the matters you know there are other tax proceedings so that mrs rogers could have a different attorney representing her yes he knew anything about that course of action or the circumstances surrounding those rulings are well apparently the court did the taxpayer did raise the issue in that case that she wanted separate counsel she requested separate counsel the techs were granted her separate counsel but she's never requested separate counsel in this case she didn't request or they don't know of any ruling in that on any conflict of interest or any such thing i believe there were orders by the tax court but they just refer to the transcript which i wasn't able to obtain and in this sort of amount well i didn't feel it was necessary because that is the waiver so the absence of a wave or the waiver in this case clear meaningful participation is a question of fact the taxpayer has the burden to prove that she did not participate meaningfully in the two thousand and twelve trial of the two thousand port efficiency case meaningful participation is not defined in  proposed regs which is much more like our case where the taxpayer did attend the trial and was held to us meaningfully participate so it turns out the trial is an important factor represented by counsel the tax court correctly found based on the circumstances at the time of the february twelfth trial as the tax court found taxpayer was highly educated at the time of the trial she has a lot of degree from villanova she's a member of the scot apart from m b a a doctorate and a man taken corporate and personal income tax income tax accounting advanced checks economy and other business and finance finance class she owns substantial assets she had substantial business experience at the time of that two thousand and twelve trial she had jointly managed family finances property and business with her husband and tapped their inner husband who represent has represented or have a very close relationship in the words of the tax court and in her own words have a very good she admitted that she had gone over the tax returns although surprisingly on her innocence claim which was signed under penalty of perjury she stated that she did not review her returns before they were filed petitioner was unaware of the legal implications of being a named party in the two thousand and four deficiency case the taxpayer citation of the court's ressort decision is misplaced because it was a merits decision get it to be far from innocent spouse really under sixteen fifteen g two so  i believe it puts both the merits and the six to fifteen g to issue at issue it may be that the merits list is could be considered moved but it's right in the order so if we had to remain and we'd be going back to where you know may be considered of a prejudice and the texas court judge was concerned about that but what's unclear here is that her lawyer had to agree that he would not call himself as a witness and the government decided they weren't going to call him as a witness so the texas court had no problem going forward is just having gone through the and i believe take the hague case require some scrutiny because of i believe although there was attendance at court i don't know that it was anything that was material