Most Recent Posts
Santa Forever
I uncovered where Santa Claus spends his vacation time.
Major Crackdown On Conservation Easements Or IRS Bluff?
Conservation easement charitable deductions are a relatively benign tax expenditure. The idea is that somebody who owns property with a highest and best use different from its current use should be able to give up the right to develop in the interest of conservation and receive a charitable deduction (Note I am simplifying here).
When you give something to charity your deduction is generally the fair market value of what you gave. The best way to arrive at fair market value is through comparable sales. But people don’t buy and sell conservation easements very much, if at all.
So you value the easement by figuring out the value of the property without the easement and subtract the value of the property with the easement. It is the before value that is a problem, because we have to think about what you might do with the property.
Syndicated Conservation Easements – Mining Concepts For Tax Dollars
The recent Tax Court decision Coal Property Holdings is a good illustration of Reilly’s Fourth Law of Tax Planning – Execution isn’t everything but it’s a lot. This is a conservation easement syndication deal and the facts indicate that it is on the questionable side.
Kent Hovind Trying To Undo His 2006 Conviction
Think of a federal court as being something of a bridge tournament. Hovind and Hansen are going there and playing Crazy Eights.
Audiobooks are booming! By Thomas A. Burns, Jr.
I want to thank my good friend Peter Reilly for allowing me space on Your Tax Matters Partner to talk about the growing popularity of audiobooks. Even though...
President Trump Now A Florida Man
President Trump, if challenged by New York, will have to establish that he has abandoned his New York domicile and established a new domicile in Florida. This will be challenging given that he is actually living in Washington DC. (DC is clearly not his domicile though, because he has to move out of his residence in either January 2021 or January 2025).
The other problem I see is that it is hard to establish that you have become a Floridian because it is not quite the distinctive identity that being a New Yorker is. And domicile does turn on irrational factors. That was the basis of the advice that I gave back in 2017, which still stands.
Ed And Elaine “Show Me The Law” Brown May Be Released Soon
According to the Bureau of Prison Inmate Locator, Edward Brown, age 77, has a release date of 7/26/2045 and Elaine Brown, age 78, has a release date of 11/8/2042. Clearly, the sentences that they received in 2009 were virtually life sentences. They had been prosecuted as the result of a months long armed stand off at their home in New Hampshire. They had been resisting surrendering to serve a 2007 sentence related to tax resistance activities.
AI Coming For Tax Planners – The Horror
The product looks like it could be very useful for someone doing litigation or audit representation on the issues that it covers. In the type of large local/regional CPA practice I grew up in, I think that it might not get enough use to justify spending not just the money on the product but also the time you would need to spend to get really comfortable with it. If I had a niche practice focused on an issue that is covered, I think I would run right out and buy it.
Auditing The IRS: What Is Coming In 2020
Determine whether the IRS has implemented policies, procedures, and practices to ensure that compensation is considered in examinations of closely held S Corporations and their shareholders.
TIGTA 2020 Audit Plan
Beto O’Rourke, IRS And The Constitution
States tend to have the Attorney General’s office regulate not-for-profits not their revenue departments. For some reason at the federal level it falls to the IRS, which is actually a bad choice particularly in its current beleaguered states, but politicians and activists of all sorts are quick to call the IRS to step in to effectively shut down groups by revoking their exemptions for matters that have nothing to do with taxation.
It’s silly. As we saw with the interminable scandal, the IRS is terrible at it and it detracts from its very important core function of collecting revenue.
It’s also bipartisan. Ben Carson reflexively called for the revocation of the exemption of an Islamic group that was critical when he was running for the Republican nomination in 2015.
Just stop it. Have the IRS bring in the money. That’s a big enough job for them.