In litigating tax disputes with the IRS, taxpayers are permitted to choose the court forum. Three trial courts are available: (1) U.S. Tax Court, (2) Federal District Court, and (3) U.S. Claims Court. Consider a study of taxpayers' choice of forum in litigating tax issues (Journal of Applied Business Research, Fall 1996). A random sample of 161 court decisions was obtained for analysis. Two of the many variables measured for each case were taxpayer's choice of forum (Tax, District, or Claims Court) and tax deficiency DEF (i.e., the disputed amount, in dollars).

a. The researchers applied a nonparametric test rather than a parametric test to compare the DEF distributions of the three tax litigation forums. Give a plausible reason for their choice.

b. What nonparametric test is appropriate for this analysis? Explain.

c. The table below summarizes the data analyzed by the researchers. Use the information in the table to compute the appropriate test statistic.

d. The observed significance level (p-value) of the test was reported as p = .0037. Fully interpret this result?