Charitable remainder annuity trusts, or CRATS, are excellent estate planning vehicles and provide a litany of benefits to those who implement them, but as Devin Mills discussed in his recent article on the 2023 IRS Dirty Dozen list, the IRS considers CRATS as one of the legitimate tax strategies that are often abused by taxpayers.[1]…
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It is fairly common to make charitable gifts of property prior to a sale transaction. Often, those gifts are of real property or closely-held business interests. This is for good reason. Structured properly, not only do donors generally receive a charitable income tax deduction equal to the fair market value of the donated property, they…
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Most people believe that assets held in trust for their benefit, at least to the extent the trust assets were left in trust by a third party (such as, for example, a parent), to be exempt from the claims of their creditors. As a general rule, this belief is well founded. However, as for claims…
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Passive Activity Loss Rules Lead To Yet Another Taxpayer Loss In Court – Why Keeping Adequate Records Is Essential In a recently issued Memorandum Opinion[1], the United States Tax Court found that a husband and wife who owned and operated real estate investment properties were not entitled to deduct losses derived from properties owned in…
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Reasonable compensation has been a relatively hot topic this year. Charles Allen previously discussed the Blossom case in which the taxpayers were penalized for understating the compensation of the two owners/officers of an S corporation.[1] While Charles’s discussion focused on employment taxation, Josh Sage followed up with an article on the resulting income taxation consequences…
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In a recent full Tax Court opinion[1], the Tax Court set aside Notice 2017-10, holding IRC § 6662A penalties are not to be imposed upon the taxpayer.[2] The Court’s reasoning was that the IRS failed to properly follow the notice-and-comment procedure, required under the Administrative Procedure Act. On December 23, 2016, the IRS issued Notice…
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The state of litigation concerning listed transactions has changed dramatically since the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in CIC Services, LLC v. Internal Revenue Service in May of 2021. Prior to the Court’s decision, the IRS relied on the Anti-Injunction Act to shield itself from litigation based on the Service’s failure to go through the required…
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In a recent appellate decision from the Ninth Circuit, a taxpayer/attorney/neurosurgeon/corporate shareholder who helped develop a patented imaging technology was held liable for ordinary income assessments with respect to annual royalty payments related to patent royalty income. Facts Dr. Aaron Filler, a licensed attorney and neurosurgeon, contributed to the development of a certain Diffusion Tensor…
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In Izen v. Comm’r, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed a Tax Court decision to deny a taxpayer’s charitable contribution deduction where the taxpayer failed to meet the statutory documentation requirements for the charitable contribution.[1] The key documentation that the taxpayer lacked was a contemporaneous written acknowledgement that included his taxpayer identification number.…
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Generally speaking, tax follows the facts. One can of course change those facts, but when done so merely superficially, intended results may not follow. Some may be more familiar with the phrase “putting lipstick on a pig.” Well, that seems to be more or less the case in the recent opinion released in the Eighth…
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