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Most Recent Posts

IRS Cannot Levy Tribal Payments

IRS Cannot Levy Tribal Payments

It is not just the tribes that make per-capita payments.  The State of Alaska also makes a distribution to all its residents, although it is much more modest than what the Puyallup pay.  If you go back to the Founders, you will find that Thomas Paine advocated some sort of per-capita payment to recognize that unlike the state of nature where there were lots of things available if you were willing to do a bit of work, even by the late eighteenth century most of the world was owned by somebody.

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Risk Of At-Risk – Ominous Memo Hints At Fallout From IRS Audits Of Large Partnerships

Risk Of At-Risk – Ominous Memo Hints At Fallout From IRS Audits Of Large Partnerships

The reason that the partnership form is the entity of choice for tax sheltering is that you have basis in your share of the partnership’s liabilities.  Basis is the third hoop you have to jump through to post a negative number on your return.  (The first two, which I will not be discussing are the activity being for profit (Section 183) and the allocation of loss to you being valid (Section 704))Having basis also allows you to take cash out of the entity without recognizing gain.

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Tax Denier Wins Damage Claim Against IRS Levy – Kind Of

Tax Denier Wins Damage Claim Against IRS Levy – Kind Of

There are a significant number of people out there who argue that most ordinary Americans are not subject to income tax.  Although they always lose on those arguments, and Ms. Music is no exception, when there is actual litigation, this case is evidence that they may be swamping the system.  Ms. Music went 15 years without filing.  The strains on the IRS budget make it more likely that more of them will be able to slip through the cracks. The courts, quite rightly, will require the IRS to dot all its i’s and cross all its t’ s, as they are doing in this case.  Nothing is requiring Congress to provide them with the resources to do that.

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IRS Chief Counsel Checks 1986 Committee Reports To Give Break On Foreclosed Real Estate

IRS Chief Counsel Checks 1986 Committee Reports To Give Break On Foreclosed Real Estate

A foreclosure on real property subject to recourse debt comprising the taxpayer’s entire interest in a passive (or former passive) activity is a fully taxable transaction for purposes of §§ 1001 and 469(g)(1)(A), regardless of whether any COD income from the cancellation of recourse debt is excluded under § 108(a)(1)(B). Thus, the losses from the activity are treated as not from a passive activity under §469(g)(1)(A). Additionally, these losses are not reduced by any excluded COD income under § 108(b)(2)(F).

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Graduation Contingency Kills Alimony Deduction

Graduation Contingency Kills Alimony Deduction

In this case, the divorce decree clearly states that the support payments will terminate upon the graduation of the youngest child. With this kind of contingency, the statute compels us to characterize the payments as child support.  The fact that the divorce decree specifies that the payments are to be deducted by Mr. Johnson is not controlling

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Tax Court Denies Amway Losses – Again

Tax Court Denies Amway Losses – Again

My first suggestion is that if you want to have a side business to make personal expenses deductible (which is something that you should not do at all, by the way), Amway is about the worst thing to pick.  People with persistent Amway losses do not do well in Tax Court.  The other is that if you expect that a side activity will ultimately be profitable, you might want to consider suspending the losses under Code Section 469.  Although in principle, this does not immunize you from being attacked under Section 183, as a practical matter it does since you are not getting a current benefit.   You will get the benefit when the activity becomes profitable or you abandon it.

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Football Dad Beats IRS In Tax Court

Football Dad Beats IRS In Tax Court

Weakness in the dependency exemption system that the Form 8332 was supposed to solve.  The system is based on the assumption that there will be a custodial parent designated, but that is not necessarily the case.  I’ve seen in practice that it can be a rather murky question.

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