Most Recent Posts
IRS Denies Exempt Status To Scholarship Fund Targeted To Founder’s Child
It might have worked just by luck of the draw, but the couple might have done a couple of things to help. They could have found some friends to act as the foundation officers, assuming, for the sake of argument, that people that self-centered actually have friends.
Kent Hovind Innocence Narrative The Latest Chapter
Kent Hovind's latest innocence narrative was long delayed (Originally it was going to be a January surprise. January 2016) and had a false start, but it is up and...
IRS Cracking Down On Easement Donation Syndications
Given the high value of the castles in the air that some appraisers can conjure, you can see that ultimately the owners of property have much more in the way of potential tax benefit than they can use themselves even with the generous 50% adjusted gross income limitation and 15 year carryover. That’s where syndication comes in.
A year or so ago, thanks to all I have written about conservation easements, I received a call from someone who was promoting the syndication of conservation easements. In order for it to work I figured that one of three things had to be going on. There was fast and loose playing with Code Section 704, which concerns how you allocate income and losses among partners, property was being acquired from very dumb people or they were, you know, fibbing about the valuation. I think the proportions may vary, but that the third element, the valuations, tends to predominate. At least that is what the IRS is implying.
Tax Court Sustains IRS Strict Interpretation Of Charitable Acknowledgement Rules
The problem with valuing conservation and facade easements is that they involve subtracting the value of something real and existing now from the value of something hypothetical, which can turn into something of a fantasy. The valuation of the facade easement in this case is more grounded in reality. There was a real development plan ready to roll until Mr. Berman stepped in front of the hypothetical wrecking ball. It would be interesting to dig into it further, but at this point, I really don’t have enough information. My guess is the appraiser kind of underestimated the hurdles and risks including the obvious one that the Landmark Preservation Commission might, as they did, rule in favor of preservation.
A Very Cinema-graphic Passage
Off and on, I have been reading The Earth Is Weeping - The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West by Peter Cozzens. It is, of course, a very sad story,...
On Bitcoins, Tulips And IRS Tax Compliance
If you have been running a lot of bitcoin transactions in the last few years, you probably have a lot of unreported gains and losses. As it turns out the idea of using bitcoins to have all these anonymous transactions might not have been the smartest thing that ever entered into some villainous brain. The essence of the blockchain system means that there are many many identical copies of journals (I know they are called ledgers, but I think they are more like journals) that contain every single transaction with every single bitcoin ever. If a public key can be associated with you, then all the transactions done with that public key are identified as yours. There are things that mitigate this, such as the use of multiple public keys, but unlike cash which can go from hand to hand with no permanent record every bitcoin transaction is recorded – forever.
Becket Fund Helps Clergy Intervene In Parsonage Lawsuit
The latest in the case is a proposed intervention by clergymen and religious organizations represented by the Becket Fund For Religious Liberty. The argument is that they have more skin in the game than the IRS since an FFRF win would affect them. Quite grievously as they lay it out. The proposed intervenors are Bishop Edward Peecher and Chicago Embassy Church, Father Patrick Malone and Holy Cross Anglican Church and the Diocese of Chicago and Mid-America of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. The Diocese has eight clergies who live in church-owned parsonages, who would be unaffected by this litigation, and thirteen who receive housing allowances.
Online Travel Companies Win Another Round In Fight Over Occupancy Taxes
The Tax Foundation toted up the score on these cases in a paper by Joseph Henchman early this year noting that over the past decade state and local governments in 34 states, the District of Colombia and Puerto Rico have filed lawsuits against the likes of Expedia, Hotels.com, Priceline and Travelocity. Overall the online companies have been winning prevailing in 39 cases in 23 states while losing in ten cases in six states and the District of Columbia. We should probably score this one as a win for the online companies.
The Tax Foundation seems to lean a bit to my theory that all this litigation is something of a white-collar jobs program.
IRS Says Fixing Up Your Own House Is Not Charity
For better or worse, 501(c) status has significance beyond federal income tax.It can be relevant for property tax and sales tax exemptions and be a requirement for an organization to be able to serve liquor or run gambling operations in some jurisdictions. And then there is the, in my view, extra dose of credibility that 501(c) organizations have along with the ability to access certain types of grants.
IRS Coinbase Summons What Are You Going To Do When They Come For You ?
You will often see the blockchain referred to as a ledger. As I read the descriptions, though, I think that it is actually more of a journal. Back in the day we would have various journals that item by item recorded things like purchases, sales, receipts and disbursements. The totals from the journals would be “posted” to the ledger. At year end, the income accounts would be closed. To analyze an account was to show the exact transactions that went into that account. A critical component of the process was to cut things off. Beginning in the eighties, we entered a kind of brave new world thanks to databases. Some of the systems designed to use them were focused on issues like inventory management with the accounting functions thrown in. It sometimes seemed that it was like never being able to step into the same river twice.