Rubber Hitting The Road On New Partnership Audit Regime
The Games People Will Pay
Most of the reasons I can think of for not electing out of CPAR involve shenanigans that are even worse than the one I imagine that I and my imaginary friend James would play on the Millenials. Assume you don’t elect out and do some really aggressive stuff in 2018. Keep the partnership alive, barely, but by the time it gets around to the adjustment year, the only partners are a couple of moribund C corporations.
Remember Reilly’s Third Law of Tax Planning – Any clever idea that pops into your head probably has (or will have) a corresponding rule that will make it not work. So maybe shenanigans like that will be foiled. I hope so.
Who Is That Masked Man? DC Circuit Tells Tax Court To Keep It Quiet
I think what would be money well spent by the IRS is to go into the Big 4 and large regionals and hire away the people with ten years or so of experience who know they are never going to be partners because they lack soft skills and will make lousy salespeople. You give them a better work-life balance, a pension and the chance to show up all the corners that they know are being cut. It will strike terror in the hearts of corporate tax departments.
A really radical proposal would be to require public companies to disclose their tax returns as part of their SEC submissions and require the independent auditors to cover them in their opinion. That is more of an entertaining thought experiment than a realistic proposal
Follow Me
Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.