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Most Recent Posts

Something Borrowed Makes You Blue – Student Debt And Joint Returns

Something Borrowed Makes You Blue – Student Debt And Joint Returns

From a policy point of view, the current system, if you can call it that, makes no sense at all.  The message graduate schools can now send to a highly indebted student is that further increases in debt never have to be paid back, so there is no point in being price-conscious.  It is as if we have consigned an entire generation to be in a permanent state of work-out.

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Jeffrey Webber’s Cayman Insurance Shelter Nixed By Tax Court

Jeffrey Webber’s Cayman Insurance Shelter Nixed By Tax Court

Mr. Webber established a grantor trust that purchased “private placement” variable life insurance policies insuring the lives of two elderly relatives (That’s the ghoulish part).  The premiums paid to Lighthouse Capital Insurance Co. (Cayman Islands) after deduction for mortality risk and administrative charge were placed in separate accounts.  The accounts were segregated and invested in start-up companies that Mr. Webber was intimately familiar with.  They did quite well.

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Mario Biaggi’s Criminal Case Followed By Tax Travails

Mario Biaggi’s Criminal Case Followed By Tax Travails

Biaggi appealed to the Second Circuit, objecting to the failure of the IRS to release special agent reports that were submitted to the Grand Jury and on the valuation issue, but had not luck.

An interesting point that I have not been able to determine is whether the IRS ended up whipsawing the Biaggi family.  The assessment for Mario Biaggi not reporting the income from the grant of Wedtech stock relied on the six year statute.  So was it too late for Richard Biaggi to claim a refund for the income that he had over-reported?  Perhaps a protective refund claim went in early in the game.

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SpongeBob SquarePants In A Tax Case!

SpongeBob SquarePants In A Tax Case!

The Greenbergers also tried an estoppel argument maintaining that since the Department of Justice had notified them that they might be victims of a crime, that the government could not now argue that they were not theft victims.  That just didn’t work because Ohio law requires a privity between the thief and the victim.

There is probably not much of a tax planning point here since nobody plans to get defrauded.  The fraud story is a really good one, though.  I can’t rate it that highly since the basis was simply inflating sales, but I do think they should get some extra credit for including an animated character.

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Chief Counsel Gives Narrow Scope To Partnership Liability Regulations

Chief Counsel Gives Narrow Scope To Partnership Liability Regulations

At any rate, it was nice to have those regulations, because sometimes it is important how the liabilities are allocated among the partners and what flavor the liabilities are.  One situation where it is important whether liabilities are recourse or nonrecourse is when property is foreclosed.  If the liability is recourse, the balance is considered proceeds of sale to the extent of the fair market value of the property and the balance is income from the discharge of indebtedness.  If the liability is nonrecourse, it is all proceeds of the sale.  Which one is better?

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In Defense Of Conservation Easement Charitable Deductions

The truth is that these 70 plus cases represent a very small minority of land conservation activities across the nation. There are more than 1,700 land trust working at the local level to preserve wildlife habitat area, ecosystems that produce clean water and air, scenic rural landscapes and recreation areas, historic sites such as civil war battlefields, and productive agricultural and forestry resources that supply our nation with food and timber.

Working within their own community these groups have harnessed local enthusiasm and voluntary action to permanently preserve and protect as much as one million acres per year. Since the 1970’s, there have been tens of thousands of conservation easements donated on tens of millions of acres to conservation groups across the nation.  The cases brought by the IRS and state tax departments represent far less than 1 percent of the donations that happen in even one year.

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Joan Farr Claims IRS Denial Of Exempt Status Is Example Of Persecution Of Christians

Joan Farr Claims IRS Denial Of Exempt Status Is Example Of Persecution Of Christians

Ms. Farr indicated that AHA had never grossed more than $25,000 meaning it never had to file a complete Form 990.  Based on the drama about the loan balance, it was clear that nobody was maintaining a general ledger.  Revenue agents are trained as accountants and it makes accountants happy when they have a general ledger with everything classified.  I also have to say that having an entity pay back your loan by paying your bills for you is a very bad idea.  If there had been a general ledger with those items charged to the officer loan accountant that would have been better, but much better would be the two step process of a loan repayment via a check to Ms. Farr and her paying the bills out of her personal account.

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Campaigning For Bishopric Not A Valid Exempt Purpose – Kent Hovind Update

Campaigning For Bishopric Not A Valid Exempt Purpose – Kent Hovind Update

It strikes me as something of a compromise between hierarchical churches where bishops are appointed and churches with extreme congregational independence.  If you locked a bunch of Catholics who wanted things more democratic and Southern Baptists who wanted things more organized in a room and told them they had to agree on a governance model for the Southern Catholic Convocation, it might be what you would end up with – or not.

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Using Your IRA Funds To Start A Business Is Very Risky

Using Your IRA Funds To Start A Business Is Very Risky

The draconian rules surrounding prohibited transactions seem a bit out of place when someone is messing with what is pretty much their own money and not really avoiding any taxes in the process.  From a policy viewpoint I could see a paternalistic argument for discouraging retirement fund investment in speculative ventures, but the only speculative ventures that these rules discourage people from going into are the ones where they will be keeping more of an eye on things.

At any rate, the moral of this story is that you need to be extremely cautious with self-directed IRAs.

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