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Most Recent Posts

Former DOJ Tax Lawyer Turned Lobbyist Pleads Guilty To Leaving $2.2 Million Off Tax Returns

Former DOJ Tax Lawyer Turned Lobbyist Pleads Guilty To Leaving $2.2 Million Off Tax Returns

Most tax preparers I know will tie themselves in knots to avoid documents like 1099s and W-2s not matching what goes on the return. They know from experience that if anything will get caught and cause embarrassing notices, mismatches will.  The same care usually goes into K-1s, the forms used by partnerships and other flow-through entities to report income to owners and the IRS.

It turns out, however, that the IRS over the years has had a lot of trouble matching K-1 information to returns as is discussed in some detail in this article in this law review article by Valeriya Avdeev. Miller’s highest paying client was the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition.  If you work with housing credits, you learn about partnerships, so Mr. Miller might have been counting on IRS bumbling.

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Freedom From Religion Foundation Won’t Take Clergy Housing Case To Supreme Court

Freedom From Religion Foundation Won’t Take Clergy Housing Case To Supreme Court

Someone make the case that Joe Sixpack has to pay taxes on his income and doesn’t get any exclusion for his singlewide complete with a deck and a mangy dog sleeping under it, while Kenneth and Gloria Copeland live in an 18,280 square-foot lakefront parsonage on 25 acres valued at $6.2 million and exclude hundreds of thousands of dollars from income taxes under the housing allowance, or while Phil Driscoll enjoys not owing federal income taxes on $408,638 provided to him by his ministry to buy a second home on a lake near Cleveland, Tenn.

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Deferred Sales Trust – A Tax Plan Or A Product ? A Bit Of Both

Deferred Sales Trust – A Tax Plan Or A Product ? A Bit Of Both

There is a veritable army of financial services providers offering DST as an option and explaining why it is such a good thing.  They are members of the Estate Planning Team, which developed and implements DST.

If you are interested in joining the team, you can go to Why Join The Estate Planning Team?  There are powerpoints with audio explaining the benefits to professionals of various sorts.  Here is the one for CPAs and tax professionals. (Uses Flash)

Besides all the great referral business a CPA can get out of DST there is also the allure of a piece of the set-up fee on each transaction and a piece of the money management fee that is part of the whole package.

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Want To Know What A Machinegun Is? Look It Up In Internal Revenue Code

Want To Know What A Machinegun Is? Look It Up In Internal Revenue Code

The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.

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Horse Breeders V IRS: Even The Losers Win

Horse Breeders V IRS: Even The Losers Win

But litigated cases are a bad sample.  Most cases settle.  Unfortunately, any information on that is anecdotal, unlike the decided cases which are there for all to see.  The word on the street is that cases settle for 50% (or sometimes over 80% in favor of the taxpayer) in appeals.  And it is back to claiming the losses after that. But the really interesting thing is that in many of the litigated cases where taxpayers lose, they are actually winners if you take a broader view.

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S Corporation Might Have Been Better Plan For Writer Karin Slaughter

S Corporation Might Have Been Better Plan For Writer Karin Slaughter

The S corporation as a vehicle for authors like Slaughter is supercharged by Section 199A which allows a 20% income tax deduction for the flow through income, provided the W-2 is sufficient. Writing is not one of the specified fields like health or performing arts that is excluded from 199A for high-income people.

Assuming she does not have a team of minions writing for her she would need an S corporation so she can pay herself W-2 wages.  I discuss the optimal amount here. You would absolutely not want to make the argument that she is getting paid for the brand rather than the writing since that might fall under one of the dreaded SSTB categories that don’t qualify for the deduction.  The example in the regs is not a writer, but you should be able to get the ideas.

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How To Win An IRS Hobby Loss Audit

So I have gone through 270 hobby loss decisions.  The main takeaway, as I have noted, is that if you win on the first factor you win.  If you lose on the first factor you lose.  That is unless you are Robert Dickson.  So if Terry has been thoroughly unbusinesslike remember Robert Dickson, a yacht chartering case from 1983.  No separate account.  Didn’t advertise enough.  Factor 1 went to the IRS, but he won anyway.

When it comes to the business plan and consulting on how to get money, there are quite a few decisions you can use to argue your way out of a problem, but Susan Crile is one of the best.  The case is one in which we see that a business plan can be displayed in action without writing it down

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Tax Advisers Are Too Afraid Of The Hobby Loss Rules

Section 183 was enacted as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1969.  Regulations were issued in 1972.  They are mostly unchanged.  One of the earlier people to run up against Section 183 was Maurice Dreicer.  In 1979, the Tax Court upheld deficiencies totaling $30,000 for 1972 and 1973. (You could call that $180,000 in today’s dollars).

Mr. Dreicer’s “business” was traveling around the world and going to fine restaurants which would endeavor to serve him the”perfect steak”.  He was planning a book titled My 27 Year Search for the Perfect Steak — Still Looking.  He was already a published author with The Diner’s Companion.

Although it ended up not doing him any good Dreicer’s winning appeal to the DC Circuit set an important precedent.

We perceive no basis for disturbing the Tax Court’s finding on the nature of the undertakings generating the losses for which deductions are sought. We do not accept, however, the legal test that the court employed in ruling on deductibility. We hold that a taxpayer engages in an activity for profit, within the meaning of Section 183 and the implementing regulations, when profit is actually and honestly his objective though the prospect of achieving it may seem dim . Because the Tax Court applied a different standard, we reverse and remand for redetermination of Dreicer’s deduction claims. (Emphasis added)

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