Most Recent Posts

IRS Takes Aim At “Copyrighted” Trust Scheme
“Promoters of questionable tax schemes often distribute a “legal analysis” to potential victims. While these analyses might sound authoritative, they can sometimes resemble the output of ChatGPT in full hallucination mode.” – Ed Zollars

Tax Court Judge Suggests Glue Factory For Retired Thoroughbred Horses
But most horse owners have a more economically slit-eyed view toward things, and if they see a horse that’s not capable of racing and they can’t sell it, they’ll sell it to somebody who will get it up to Canada where there are slaughter houses and glue factories and the like.”

Stone Mining Company’s Donation Deduction For Land Given To Town Disallowed
The other problem was with the contemporaneous written acknowledgment. Even though there was an allusion to the litigation there was not an explicit enough statement of that being something that was received. Failure to have a good contemporaneous written acknowledgement means no deduction.

No Authority For How To Compute Housing Investment Exit Taxes
The parties have not pointed to any regulations, IRS guidance, or case law for their interpretation of this language, and I have found none.

Remember You Are Mortal And Make Your Annual Exclusion Gifts In January
Having lived the much softer life of public accounting, I have come up with a different way of contemplating mortality. I will load Table2010CM (available here) into excel and starting fooling with the numbers.

Tax Court Leaning Harder On The Little Guys In Hobby Loss Cases
The issue is whether Swanson was taking people out on the fishing boat to make a profit or just for the halibut,

Structured Installment Sale Can Be A Great Solution To Liquidity Event Tax
Rising interest rates have brought one technique to the fore that had gone out of favor- the structured installment sale (SIS). For what it is worth, if I had another ship come in this is the technique that I would likely go with.

Missing Tax Court Deadline By A New York Minute
Cases where the problems that lead to late filing of Tax Court petitions have been a staple of this blog and are the source of Reilly’s Seventeenth Law of Tax Planning – “Don’t cut your deadlines close and use the US Mail with proof of mailing.

Employee Retention Credit Schemes Are Symptom Of A Dysfunctional Tax System
Lance Wallach is an expert on abusive tax transactions - in a good way. He warns people about them and then helps the ones who didn't hear his warnings or did not take...

Hobby Loss Roundup
Although I fell in love with Section 183 cases because they tend to be such great stories and so amusing, that will not be the focus of my seminar. My study of the case law and detailed analysis of over 300 cases has caused me to conclude that key elements of the section are misunderstood by many practitioners (and the public which pretty much goes without saying) and that practitioners tend to be too conservative in counseling clients. The focus of my seminar will be coaching clients and winning audits.