Will National Grid Try Dumping Its Electrons Into Boston Harbor?
I have been reading about all this off-shore money and the proposals to squelch the way companies have been managing their tax liabilities, but a case like this makes me think that a lot of those arrangements might fall apart if the IRS had more resources to chase them. There is a brain drain from the IRS to the Big Four. Something tells me that if we were serious about the deficit the Government would reverse that brain drain and hire some of the best and the brightest from public accounting and industry tax departments. They would know where the bodies are likely buried.
Your Son The Lawyer Should Not Be Your Exchange Facilitator
Taxes are complicated and I do my best to simplify things when I can. The important concept about the “qualified intermediary” was that it not be someone who was your agent, since your agent touching the money was as bad as you touching the money. “Qualified intermediary” was to some extent defined negatively. I distilled it to a fairly simple rule. Anybody that a reasonable business person would trust to hold his money and follow his instructions to acquire the replacement property was disqualified. The QI could not be his lawyer, his accountant, his brother or his partner.
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.