five to seven hacker b in the united states hackers not farm income tax schedules were garbus of the fact that the hackers wellbeing from two thousand and three to two thousand and four with regard to farming had declined and that the hackers had requested to submit more information in support of their claim the government has claimed that steen this court's decision steamed supports and even dictates the result the c i t which is from the u here prevent people from switching from a cash to an accrual basis because the the concern there is that those are the only reports of not farm income that their tax returns are you saying they should be able to continue to do that but solely for the purposes of the statute statutory scheme we're dealing with here they should be able to use an accrual basis for him to flee if the  what another factor that would support that is that the farmer makes the decision of whether to report cash an accrual before knowing what the trade adjustment assistance program implication maybe for the hackers it was several years before that and as your honor indicated there is a lot of difficulty of switching back and forth and there's a requirement you know who or what you're saying that for the trade of the court to dictate that the court said please explain why you're not allowing him to report recall income and you may reopen the record and the u s d a voluntarily reopen the record and said we will accept  explaining how it ties back to the actual farm income i think in many of these cases it's actually it's not a complicated analysis because his if for the hackers there are expenses will stay the same and the income will be the same as what is on their tax returns and the question will be moving income that relates to crops sold in two thousand and three and two thousand or two those tax years off  adjacent tax years so it would be something that would be supported by the tax returns and it would also be relatively minimal computation  on a year by year basis especially performers and especially for a farmer like mr hucker who does not get paid in one year for a single crop and this is explained in his original application he gets paid over three years for every for every one year reasonable to say well when he file the return was in a good position to know which which was most accurate reflection of his income and that's what he chose there is an accurate reflection of income for our us purposes which is over the the i r s would have a much larger perspective same we just want to make sure that we get taxes from this farmer over a ten year period or for the life of the farm it's pretty a purposes it's much around and saying well now to trade a system and i want to use a different one why isn't it reasonable for the government to say you have a free choice and a tax return you chose one rather than the other we're going to require them to use the same method  or the trade assistance as or for income tax growth for one it's not accurate through trade adjustment assistance per cents because and in the hackers in making that decision and most farmers i think decide not for that they believe both methods are accurate for ira's purposes the decision comes down to whether one is more of those number of factors but for the actors and for small farmers like the hackers it's usually what's more practical and the cash method is much easier to manage and a year by year basis and then i think it's unreasonable for the u s d a not to allow them to restate their income on a on an accrual basis because here there is no question that the receipt of the disaster relief payment distorted their income the u s d a recognised that payments like these can mask the overall lack of economic well being of farmers and issuing the final rule he said trade adjustment assistance payments could distort the analysis and we're going to take him out of the equation and so i think there's no difference here with the disaster relief payment that similarly is preventing mr and mrs hacker from getting has prevented them from getting trade adjustment assistance cash benefits and but it has no it does not bear relationship to how well their farm performed in either two thousand and three or two thousand or because it relates to a disaster in two thousand or so their income for two thousand and three and two thousand and four is accurate accurately reported to the i r s there's no question there but over the life of the former but it's not accurate for purposes of saying how did they do in two thousand and three and how did they do in two thousand or s steam decision kind of going through that they had relied on three factors to say that the farmer in the scheme decision and his challenge was not interpretation of the regulations was was unsupported by the congressional goals in issuing trade adjustment assistance here that on both points steam those factors in steam would support the hackers any other interpretation of the regulation is not at odds with the statue congress clearly thought that determination of farm income something that was open ended and  needed clarification by the agency and second of the purpose of the program is to provide cash benefits to those who are suffering  worse economic wellbeing in the face of import competition as a result of him or competition there's no question here that the hackers had suffered significant losses in both this and also back to the issue of steam and robert anderson i just wanted to quickly address that the steam case said that the nut farm income place your position  should be determined for all products that a farmer makes her only this sort of a commodity they set a general framework that it's reasonable to rely on a tax return but it would be unreasonable to solely inflexibly rely on that tax return and we're not going to list all of the instances where that would be unreasonable but we're going to specifically note that the farmer here mr sterling is not alleging that his tax return information is distorted for a specific year and so that said the general has sort of detailed finer strokes that fill the space set up by students and i think the government has said that steam needs to be overturned in order for the hackers to get relief but i think it's decide to the extent it held that the agency was obligated always to make a case by case the terminations irrespective of whatever it is that the da applicant has put before the agency i thought i'd tell your position was that the regulation says that you look at the tax returns there may be some instances under seige in which you could change what was on the tax return but you couldn't change from a cruel to a cash method or vice versa in order to get trade is just i guess the way i would phrase that your honor is presumptively that's the case we have the agency is entitle in the first instance to look at the tax returns and make a decision based on nothing more than stand those and if the petitioner is going to leave the ca applicant is going to try and tell the agency that it should not the agency should not rely on the net farm income as reported on a tax returns documentation and supporting financial data that had been provided to the i r s or another government agency and in this case that simply did not happen in fact one of the biggest problems on appeal for the hackers is that they abandoned two of the other issues that were raised local initially before the c h p so what the hackers did is said well we have several problems with the net income on our tax returns and we would like you to adjust for various other payments not just a disaster payment but also the timing of certain payments from welch's and in addition to some other expenses now having dropped those two issues and not ever attempting to put in front of the agen hackers now want this court to hold that the courts should focus on this one disaster payment and say should have a right to go back and move that disaster payment around to different years but of course that isn't so that means that the ha attention is counsel just said that the net income on the tax return is inflated is simply not true they've never been able to demonstrate to the agency never sought to even demonstrate that the income   in fact that the the reason why the disaster payment occurred in two thousand and four that showed their net income to be higher was due to appropriate tax management procedures so it is true if the c i is he indicated i decision here in this case there is a fear of the judgment fear manipulation because what the ca applicants have been able to do is make it an election to account for the disaster payment in a way that benefits them on the tax and that is delaying the payment to a later year and then trying to reallocate that same disaster payment to an earlier year for the purposes of gaining the ca benefits and that's precisely the type of necessary to have the anderson one and two cases over rules that is correct but two i think are the point in our point of our previous was to say   at least in the in first decision anderson the c i t seemed to suggest that the entire regulation where in the agency says that they can look just  net farmington his report on the tax return that regulation itself was suspect and in the initial andersen decision the court seemed to hold while it did hold agency go back and explain to me how this regulation doesn't create some sort of arbitrary classification to the point where the regulation should be invalid and that line of thinking the idea that the regulation is invalid was excluded by st holes that the regulation in question is down it is rational isn't title to deference and the c i t and anderson did not seem to go that way and although it kept being remanded to the agency to fully explain align on the on the tax forms as far as the purposes of the statute is that under that regulation is that as i look you're saying i think in the first instance yesterday our position is that in the first instance we look at the tax return that's what the one which would have to be either supporting documentation from the c p a or attorney or relevant documentation such as financial data that was submitted either to the i r s or another government agency so that's why they have to show that something was wrong with the tax return  distorted but that information that qualifies under fifteen eighty point three zero one was never submitted you what they did submit in letters in a sort of a document dump of data related to the timing of certain payments other payments no longer at issue no longer issue with the idea by the time the motions for judgment on the ministry of record were rendered in fact we argued below in that it had those other payments were out of the case of the amended complaint filed once counsel had taken over for the hackers which were pretty proceeding pro se but the problem here is that having dropped those other timing of those right i that's that's correct i mean there may have to be some other showing on top of that to show that the tax return is distorted but even assuming the hackers are correct that a chat a in a cruel accounting not more accurate than the other people just make choices as to whether to do it or not the i r s so as to choose one method over the other what's distortive about using a cash method i'm i'm a spy i was making a point just from the hackers perspective but but the hackers contention is that there's something to stored about the cash basis because it doesn't accurately reflect necessarily in a specific snapshot of time wh by recording on the cash basis it doesn't reflect absolutely distortion and doesn't reflect the sort of them points and considerations that are relevant for the adjustment program in a particular year yes your honor and i think the way they characterize that is it doesn't accurately reflect nothing but all of that there's nothing wrong with the cash return no not at all not at all and that's precisely why the agency relies on it one someone say who is on a cash basis coming in present that information as listed in the regulation the type of stuff and say look i'm still reporting on a cash basis but  please take these things into account to come to the conclusion that i'm in fact titles of the adjustment yes and i'm not a request to change the reporting basis from cash to cool is really just consider additional items the answer to that is yes but with a cavity that is not sufficient in our view that the applicant simply place a bunch of data before the agency and say please take this into account it must actually wreaking peut the net farm income and provide that additional data supporting documentation on a cooldowns you call raises so i thought you said that wasn't sufficient honor i mean i believe that's what this scene is getting at when it says that there are these this other process that fifteen the three a one process that there has to be some allegation that it's some support for the notion that it's distorted that the tax returns don't accurately reflect the financial condition first i'd like to defend mr hacker discussion about appropriate age appropriate tax management was in his letter about prepaying for expenses he wasn't saying that so i think as i application cations where there is no doubt whatsoever mr hacker provided sufficient information to show that it's costing two thousand and three two thousand and four were constant relatively constant that he farm the same acreage in both ears and it doesn't work to get him the t a a benefits how is that a distortion well it's a distortion of his income for the two thousand and four crowd here so they say you know use the tax return for the most for the crop year that most closely correlates to the tax schedule and so they say for the crops that we produced in two thousand and four our income actually went down quite a bit and the tax return is distorted for measuring what we made from that crop because it includes a disaster relief payment that relates to our two thousand wanted two thousand two and b it includes payments from our two thousand recross and i also