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Most Recent Posts

District Court Sets The Bar Lower For Accountants Than Attorneys

District Court Sets The Bar Lower For Accountants Than Attorneys

The court disagrees that either Hand-Bostick or Spinelli, as tax preparers, should be held to the standard of a seasoned attorney with full knowledge of statutory and case authority, and the Government has not presented any evidence or authority that persuades the court that tax preparers are held to the same standard as attorneys or are required in every instance to seek the advice of a tax attorney. Moreover, given the timing of the claimed losses and Defendants’ testimony that they thought that the deductions were appropriate at the time, the court concludes that Defendants’ conduct in this regard is not sufficiently indicative that they will continue to participate in or promote fraudulent tax credits or tax shelter schemes.

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Teresa Giudice’s Surprise Sentence And Possible Better Ways To Motivate Compliance

Teresa Giudice’s Surprise Sentence And Possible Better Ways To Motivate Compliance

In one lab study of attention to moral standards, a group of subjects was asked to recall the Ten Commandments immediately prior to performing a numeric problem-solving exercise, while a control group was asked to recall ten books they had read in high school

In the subgroups that did not have an opportunity to cheat, the average number of problems correctly solved was the same whether or not they had been asked to recall the Ten Commandments. This was expected, since individuals in those groups were presumably honest given their low opportunity to cheat. In the subgroups that had an opportunity to cheat, however, the results were different. The subgroup that was asked to recall ten books from high school claimed to have solved more problems than the other groups, a likely indicator of  cheating. On the other hand, the subgroup asked to recall the Ten Commandments reported the same average number of problems solved as the groups with no opportunity to cheat, an indicator of honesty.

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Susan Crile Paints A Picture Of Tax Court Victory For Artists

Susan Crile Paints A Picture Of Tax Court Victory For Artists

As I noted it is rare for Tax Court cases to get much attention outside of the tax world.  There was one case where I expected that but was disappointed.  It actually had two hobby loss components – airplane remanufacturing and yacht leasing – among a host of other issues.  The taxpayer was none other than the great F. Lee Bailey, who had as his attorney, the great F. Lee Bailey.  I bemoaned the lack of interest in a post titled F. Lee Bailey Tax Attorney – More Fun Than Anietra Hamper’s Underwear.  Anietra Hamper was a TV anchorwoman who thought she should be able to deduct the clothing that she wore on air.  She lost because her station’s Woman’s Wardrobe Guidelines indicated that women on the air were supposed to dress like, well CPAs, I suppose.  Among the items of clothing that she deducted were some that are, you know, unmentionable.  That one went viral, which shows that immature as tax bloggers can be, the mainstream media is even worse.

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Will Romney 2016 Be Haunted By Unreleased Tax Returns?

I will probably not vote for Mitt Romney, but I think we could do a lot worse when it comes to who our next President is.  After obsessing about the matter for almost a year, I decided that there could not be anything in his unreleased tax returns that disqualified him from being President or reflected poorly on his character.  If I were in charge of the tax division of his campaign – and there will likely be one – I would do a data dump going back to at least 1990 the day after he announces.  I would call the strategy “Let’s Throw PWC Under The Campaign Bus”, because anything sketchy in the returns would be blamed on the accountants.  He could probably gather together a fairly large group of entrepreneurs of both parties who were convinced to participate in sketchy shelters by prominent firms.

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Tax Court Judge Appreciates Art More Than Your Average Revenue Agent

Tax Court Judge Appreciates Art More Than Your Average Revenue Agent

Lew’s comment is probably a good segue into another thing that struck me about this case.  Note the phrase catalogue raisonnée, which I had to look up.  It’s part of Lew’s active vocabulary.  Bottom line is that, in general, lawyers have much better educations than accountants.  That had me wondering if Judge Lauber’s appreciation for art would show up in his biography.  Well, it did.  Between his bachelor’s degree from Yale in 1971 and his JD from Yale in 1977, he received an MA in classics from Clare College, Cambridge.  That’s not the Cambridge that is forty miles or so east of Worcester with the former seminary for Congregational ministers and the technical college, the town where Margaret Fuller and Thomas Wentworth Higginson grew up.  It’s the one in England.  Clare College was founded in 1326.

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TIGTA Must Disclose More About Investigation Of Possible IRS Release Of Koch Industries Return Information

The trope is that S corporation status when it was created in the sixties was meant to provide relief to “small” businesses

Qualification to be an S corporation, though, is based on who can be a shareholder and how many shareholders there are.  It strikes some people as altogether wicked that a large company with few shareholders could use this break meant for little people.  If someone has that mindset and they start thinking about who is likely to have executed this perfectly legal, but altogether wicked, strategy the Koch brothers, would likely be on their short list, since they loom rather large in the consciousness of the Left.  The Koch brothers play a role for the Left, similar to what our Kenyan born Muslim president, who cannot salute properly and plays too much golf, plays for the Right.

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Seventh Circuit Allows Do-over On Tax Court Stipulations For Deceived Taxpayers

Seventh Circuit Allows Do-over On Tax Court Stipulations For Deceived Taxpayers

Mr. Shamrock and Ms. Bigg had filed a petition with the Tax Court, pro se, disputing a $170,000 notice of deficiency.  They hired Grant Niehus to represent them before the IRS and Tax Court.  Mr. Niehus represented himself as being a lawyer and a CPA.  It turned out that even though he had been to law school, he had not been authorized to practice law since 2009 and he was not a CPA at all.

Mr. Niehus had negotiated stipulations that included an agreement to take only 50% of a $435,751 deduction for real estate losses.  After signing the stipulations, Mr. Shamrock and Ms. Bigg learned of the deception.  They hired Sheldon Drobny as their representative.  Mr. Drobny was a CPA and authorized to practice before the IRS and the Tax Court.  Mr. Drobny requested that the stipulation be set aside.

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LLC Lease Structure Costs Idaho Charity Property Tax Exemption

LLC Lease Structure Costs Idaho Charity Property Tax Exemption

Putting on my federal tax hat, which is pretty much my favorite, I would think that was no problem.  A single member LLC, unless it elects otherwise,  is a disregarded entity.  That means that you can freely take things out of it and put things into it without recognizing gain or loss and, for federal income tax purposes, transactions between you and your single member LLC have as much tax significance as transactions between me and my shadow.  So the fact that the Youth Ranch was leasing from the LLC for the greater of $25,000 per month or its mortgage payments would be a transaction that could be washed right out of any federal tax significance.

Then they applied for a property tax exemption on the building, which apparently was solely dedicated to charitable use.  Oops.

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Court Rules Oklahoma ObamaCare Not OK

Court Rules Oklahoma ObamaCare Not OK

The IRS ruled that for purposes of the credit it did not matter whether the exchange was run by a state or HHS. The language in the statute, however, reads that the credit applies when someone is “enrolled … through an exchange established by the State”.  Following that logic taxpayers in states with HHS exchanges do not qualify for the credit and hence there is no employer mandate.

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