Federal
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March 07, 2024
IRS Seeks Suggestions For Next Priority Guidance Plan
The Internal Revenue Service is soliciting public suggestions for its 2024-25 priority guidance plan, the agency announced Thursday.
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March 07, 2024
Feds Look To Bar Advice-Of-Counsel Defense From Tax Trial
Federal prosecutors have sought to prevent two attorneys and an insurance agent from relying on advice-of-counsel defenses in their upcoming tax fraud trial, telling a North Carolina federal judge the trio failed to give the court an adequate heads-up about their intended defense.
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March 07, 2024
IRS Halts Penalties On Dyed Diesel After Texas Wildfires
The Internal Revenue Service will momentarily stop imposing penalties on the sale or highway use of dyed diesel fuel in parts of Texas in response to wildfires, the agency said.
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March 07, 2024
IRS' Taxpayer Advocacy Panel Schedules April Meeting
The Internal Revenue Service's Taxpayer Advocacy Panel Joint Committee scheduled its next public meeting for April 22, the agency said Thursday.
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March 07, 2024
Biden Urges Higher Taxes On Wealthy Companies, Individuals
President Joe Biden, in his Thursday night State of the Union address, urged Congress to make the U.S. tax code fairer by enacting higher rates on wealthy corporations and individuals and extending tax relief to working families.
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March 06, 2024
Software Execs Tried To Save Co. With Trust Taxes, Jury Told
Prosecutors and defense attorneys on Wednesday painted competing pictures of two former software executives at the start of their tax fraud trial in North Carolina, with the government characterizing the pair as liars and cheaters while the defense claimed they were merely trying to right the ship as their business floundered.
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March 06, 2024
Impending Corp. Spinoff Guidance Could Refine Tax-Free Test
Tax attorneys are watching to see if eagerly awaited corporate spinoff guidance will help determine whether transactions qualify for tax-free status with more clarity than current regulations, and without controversial bright-line rules that were floated several years ago.
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March 06, 2024
Startup Investors' Attys Want $1.5M In Fees On Disclosure Suit
Lawyers for a class of investors have asked a New York federal court to approve their attorney fees of $1.5 million for a $4.5 million settlement with a Chinese analytics startup over claims the company misrepresented its tax liability before its initial public offering.
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March 06, 2024
IRS Targeted Atty In Bank Records Suit, Justices Told
The Internal Revenue Service violated an attorney's free speech rights by targeting him based on a tax analysis he posted online, he argued in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider overturning a ruling allowing the agency to obtain his bank account information.
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March 06, 2024
First Woman To Be Permanent Top IRS Atty Begins Tenure
The first woman to permanently serve as chief counsel of the Internal Revenue Service began her tenure Wednesday.
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March 05, 2024
Goal Is Still For A Mandatory Amount B, Treasury Official Says
Negotiators at the OECD made it optional for countries to adopt new simplified and streamlined transfer pricing rules, known as Amount B, but the goal is still for the framework to be mandatory, a U.S. Treasury Department official said Tuesday.
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March 05, 2024
Pillar 1 Would Have Cost US Gov't $1.4B In 2021, Study Says
U.S. tax revenue would have been reduced by $1.4 billion in 2021 under a proposed system to reallocate a share of tax payments to where large multinational corporations have customers but lack a physical presence, the Joint Committee on Taxation said Tuesday.
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March 05, 2024
Appraiser Withholding Docs In $57M Case, Gov't Tells Court
A Florida federal court should force an appraiser to hand over documents the IRS says it needs for an investigation into a partnership's $57 million tax deduction for a conservation easement donation, the U.S. argued in a petition Tuesday, saying the appraiser has refused to comply with a summons.
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March 05, 2024
Biz Owner Gets 10 Months For Evading Tax On Foreign Income
The owner of a manufacturing company was sentenced in California federal court to 10 months in prison for avoiding taxes on almost $4.5 million in income by failing to report his foreign sales to the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
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March 05, 2024
Retiree's Bid For $284K FBAR Refund Thrown Out
Federal district courts lack jurisdiction to refund penalties for failing to report foreign accounts, which means a Georgia man must refile in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to try to recover $284,000 that he was penalized, a Georgia federal court said in dismissing his case.
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March 05, 2024
Treasury Finalizes Direct Pay Rules For Energy Tax Credits
The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Tuesday finalized regulations governing direct payments of several clean energy tax credits provided by the Inflation Reduction Act but said it was still mulling how to address so-called chaining of payments and co-ownership arrangements.
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March 04, 2024
Former DOJ Assistant Chief Joins Bird Marella
The assistant chief in the fraud section of the Department of Justice's Criminal Division joined Bird Marella Rhow Lincenberg Drooks & Nessim LLP, the firm announced Tuesday.
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March 04, 2024
Corporate Transparency Act Unconstitutional, Ala. Judge Says
An Alabama federal judge has found that the Corporate Transparency Act is unconstitutional, dealing a blow to proponents of the anti-money laundering law, who anticipate the ruling will be appealed to the Eleventh Circuit.
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March 04, 2024
TCJA To Reduce Corporate Tax Revenue By 40%, Study Says
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is expected to reduce corporate tax revenue by about 40% over a decade after increased investment in the U.S. is accounted for, according to a study published Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
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March 04, 2024
Former IRS Commissioner Joins Chamberlain Hrdlicka
Former IRS Commissioner Charles "Chuck" Rettig joined Chamberlain Hrdlicka White Williams & Aughtry as a shareholder in Los Angeles, following in the footsteps of his former acting chief of staff, whom the firm hired last year.
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March 04, 2024
Justices Won't Review $10M Tax On Gulfstream Heirs
The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to review the Internal Revenue Service's imposition of personal liability for $10 million in unpaid estate taxes on the survivors of Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.'s founder, letting stand a Ninth Circuit ruling.
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March 04, 2024
1st Circ. Grapples With Crypto Exchange Tax Docs Seizure
First Circuit judges grappled Monday with an investor's claim that the IRS violated his privacy and property rights when it seized his account records from cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, trying to establish during oral arguments to what extent the exchange was different from a traditional bank.
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March 04, 2024
Trump's Former Finance Chief Pleads Guilty To Perjury
Allen Weisselberg, the longtime former financial chief of Donald Trump's real estate business empire, admitted Monday to lying under oath in the New York attorney general's civil fraud case as part of a plea deal to serve five months in jail.
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March 01, 2024
IRS Turning To Experts, AI For Complex Returns, Werfel Says
The Internal Revenue Service is using a blend of newly hired subject-matter experts and artificial intelligence technology to increase scrutiny of complex tax returns filed by wealthy corporations and individuals, agency Commissioner Daniel Werfel said Friday.
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March 01, 2024
Tax Break Bill Could Still Pass After Tax Season, Aide Says
If Senate lawmakers haven't voted on the bipartisan House-passed tax bill by the end of the 2024 tax filing season, that doesn't necessarily mean the bill won't get to President Joe Biden's desk this year, an aide to Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee said Friday.
Expert Analysis
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Expected Retirement Law Changes May Spark ERISA Suits
As Congress is poised to pass bipartisan retirement legislation that could bring collective investment trusts and 403(b) plans together and may form a new wave of litigation under the Employee Retirement Security Act, it is helpful to review the important roles that they have played in prior waves of ERISA excessive fee cases, say attorneys at King & Spalding.
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A Close Look At The Decentralized Effort To Tax Digital Assets
Clarity on taxation is one of the biggest hurdles to mass adoption of cryptocurrency, and although digital asset innovation has consistently outpaced worldwide government regulation, recent efforts in the U.S. and elsewhere hint at an emerging standard, says Joshua Smeltzer at Gray Reed.
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Lessons From The SEC's Largest-Ever Audit Firm Penalty
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent $100 million settlement over professional test cheating with Ernst & Young — the largest ever in an audit firm case — points to important ramifications for any entity responding to an SEC inquiry, say attorneys at Cleary.
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Navigating The IRS Pre-Audit Retirement Plan Pilot Program
The Internal Revenue Service launched a Pre-Examination Compliance Pilot program for retirement plans last month that gives sponsors and administrators 90 days to self-correct errors and avoid audits, and while several details are unclear, there are important steps to take at this time, say attorneys at Ice Miller.
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Key Takeaways From IRS Reversal On FDII Stance
The Internal Revenue Service's recent memo regarding allocation of deferred compensation expenses for purposes of foreign-derived intangible income is a departure from the agency's previous position and may have implications beyond the context of deferred compensation, say attorneys at Miller & Chevalier.
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How To Address Research Expenditures Amid Uncertainty
Taxpayers need to prepare for the significant technical and compliance challenges of following Internal Revenue Code Section 174's new rules for experimentation expenditure capitalization and amortization, notwithstanding the rules' unresolved legislative future, say tax advisers at Grant Thornton.
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LeClairRyan Bankruptcy Highlights Pass-Through Tax Issue
A Virginia bankruptcy court's recent ruling in the case of defunct law firm LeClairRyan shows there may be serious tax consequences for pass-through entity partners who give up their ownership interest without following operating agreement exit provisions and updating bankruptcy court filings, say Edward Schnitzer and Hannah Travaglini at Montgomery McCracken.
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Tax, Social Services And The Need For An IRS Overhaul
Revamping the Internal Revenue Service should start with visibly improving taxpayer experiences to help pave the way for other fundamental changes needed to address the recent drop in audit numbers, personnel losses, burdens of its increasing expansion into social services and other problems, says Rice University fellow Joyce Beebe.
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Key Legal And Regulatory Trends In Oil And Gas Transactions
Excerpt from Practical Guidance
Attorneys involved in oil and gas transactions must be aware of important legal and regulatory trends that have emerged recently, including issues surrounding hydraulic fracturing, climate change, pipeline tariffs and a resurgence of regulation under the Biden administration, say Justin Hoffman and Thomas Blackwell at Baker Botts.
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Employer Considerations For Leave Donation Programs
As the battle for talent continues and workers return to the office, companies may consider allowing employees to donate accrued leave time to a shared bank, but employers should first review these programs' complex design issues to comply with state laws and avoid tax consequences, says Rebecca Hudson at Holland & Hart.
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Crypto Cos. Should Prep For More IRS John Doe Summonses
In anticipation of new reporting requirements that will go into effect in 2024, cryptocurrency exchanges and custodians should inform themselves on the John Doe summons, a unique mechanism that allows the IRS to obtain expansive information about cryptocurrency transactions, say Shivani Poddar and Andrew Heighington at Herrick Feinstein.
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Employer Travel Benefits Options For Abortion Care Post-Roe
Given the likelihood that Roe v. Wade will be overturned, and with the proliferation of state legislation restricting abortion access, employers may want to consider the legal implications of several options to expand travel reimbursement benefits for employees who seek abortion services, say Danita Merlau and Ben Conley at Seyfarth.
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Global Tax Chiefs Should Look To US Whistleblower Programs
As the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement develops its international whistleblower program to address tax evasion and money laundering schemes in new areas like cryptocurrency, it should take lessons from highly successful U.S. programs on which features to include and pitfalls to avoid, say Neil Getnick and Nico Gurian at Getnick & Getnick.