Keith Tucker Cashes KPMG Get Out Of Jail Free Card In Tax Court
KPMG put Mr. Tucker into a deal when the IRS was starting to catch on to the shenanigans. You can read the decision if you want to read about the offsetting long and short currency options, called the FX transaction, that purported to create basis out of thin air. Mr. Tucker was assured that it was different from the deals that IRS had described in Notice 2000-44. It was not different enough when it came to actually working, but along with the stellar reputation of KPMG it was different enough to get Mr. Tucker out of penalties. Here are some of the high points.
Clergy Housing Tax Break Ruled Unconstitutional – Again
It’s deja vu all over again in the United States District Court For The Western District of Wisconsin as Judge Barbara Crabb rules that Code Section 107(2) – the parsonage exclusion- is unconstitutional. The parsonage exclusion allows “ministers of the gospel” to exclude from taxable income payments designated as housing allowances that they actually spend on housing. In this ecumenical age “minister of the gospel” is expansive including not only your classic minister like my blogging buddy Southern Baptist Reverend William Thornton but also rabbis, cantors, imams and, subject to the right conditions, the occasional college basketball coach. Usually, the benefit is pretty modest and many moderately paid ministers would probably give it up in exchange for a FICA match, but in the case of the megapastors of megachurches and televangelists, the allowance can and does run into the hundreds of thousands.
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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.