Janene R. Finley (Augustana College, Department of Accounting) & Allan Karnes (Southern Illinois University, School of Accountancy, College of Business Administration) have published An Empirical Study of the Change in the Burden of Proof in the United States Tax Court, 6 Pitt. Tax Rev. 61 (2008). Here is the part of the Introduction:

This study is concerned with § 3001 of the Act, which changed the burden of proof rules in the U.S. Tax Court and is codified in I.R.C. § 7491.

Typically, in a civil action, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff or petitioner, which would be the taxpayer in a Tax Court case. The Act changed the rules so that the burden of proof is on the IRS in certain situations. This change was intended to help create a better balance of power between the IRS and individual and small business taxpayers during litigation. Although there were many changes within the Act, this study's only purpose is to determine whether the change in the burden of proof from the taxpayer to the IRS affected cases decided by the Tax Court. No prior study had statistically examined whether the burden shift was detectable in Tax Court decisions.

This paper proceeds as follows. Part II includes a literature review. Part III describes the data used in the study, and the variables are described in part IV. The method and results are presented in part V. The results and limitations are discussed in part VI. Part VII concludes the paper.