Federal

  • June 02, 2025

    Justices Urged To Reject Bid Disputing IRS Crypto Summons

    The U.S. Supreme Court should not take up the case of a bitcoin investor who claimed the IRS violated his privacy when it seized his records from the cryptocurrency exchange, the government argued, saying the case is a poor vehicle for addressing concerns about digital-era transactions.

  • June 02, 2025

    4 Mass. Rulings You May Have Missed In May

    Massachusetts judges grappled with accusations of fraud in the sale of a struggling life sciences company and gave the benefit of the doubt to a vendor who allegedly sold the state gallons of ineffective hand sanitizer, among other notable rulings last month.

  • June 02, 2025

    Tax Court Finds No Abuse By IRS In Rejecting Man's Tax Offer

    The Internal Revenue Service did not abuse its discretion in rejecting a man's offer in compromise for the balance on a $400,000 tax bill, the U.S. Tax Court ruled Monday, saying the agency properly considered cash in the man's bank account and his current wages.

  • June 02, 2025

    Halliburton Wants IRS To Release Docs In $35M Tax Dispute

    The Internal Revenue Service should be ordered to comply with Halliburton's discovery requests in a dispute over a $35 million deduction for payments the company said it made to a foreign government to protect its employees from harassment, the company told a Texas federal court.

  • June 02, 2025

    Tax Court Cuts $21M Off Former Ga. Quarry's Deduction Value

    A donated 85-acre land plot in Georgia originally valued at nearly $22 million should have been valued around $193,000, the U.S. Tax Court found Monday, agreeing with the Internal Revenue Service.

  • June 02, 2025

    Vanguard, Investors Renegotiating After $40M Tax Deal Axed

    Vanguard and investors have scrapped a $40 million class action deal in a case over surprise tax bills from a fund restructuring and will resume settlement discussions after a Pennsylvania federal judge recently found that the deal could have saddled investors with attorney fees.

  • June 02, 2025

    Feds Want 12½ Years For Ex-Ill. Speaker Convicted Of Bribery

    Prosecutors are urging an Illinois federal judge to sentence former state House Speaker Michael Madigan to prison for 12½ years for bribery, conspiracy and fraud, saying his conduct adds "another sordid chapter to Illinois' storied reputation of corruption" while Madigan, armed with more than 200 letters of support, seeks only probation.

  • June 02, 2025

    Foley & Lardner Opens In Nashville With 3 Holland & Knight Attys

    Foley & Lardner LLP has chosen Nashville as the location for its 27th office worldwide, bringing on three attorneys who had been at Holland & Knight LLP to work on regulatory, tax and transactional matters, the firm announced Monday.

  • June 02, 2025

    Ex-Atty In $7B Tax Fraud Tells 7th Circ. IRS Can't Collect

    A former attorney sentenced to prison in connection with a $7 billion tax fraud told the Seventh Circuit that the Internal Revenue Service lacks the power to collect his court-ordered $371 million restitution, calling the agency's claims against him "wild and scurrilous."

  • June 02, 2025

    Ex-Par Funding CFO Sentenced To 5½ Years, Must Pay $303M

    Joseph Cole Barleta, the last of the triumvirate behind the $404 million Par Funding investment scam to be sentenced, was handed a 66-month prison term Monday, along with a staggering $303 million restitution order.

  • June 02, 2025

    IRS To Hold Hearing On Sourcing Cloud Transaction Income

    The Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Treasury Department will hold a hearing July 17 on proposed rules on the source of income from cloud transactions, they said Monday.

  • May 30, 2025

    Split 9th Circ. Won't Unblock Trump's Gov't Overhaul

    A split Ninth Circuit on Friday refused to lift a California federal judge's preliminary block of President Donald Trump's executive order directing layoffs at federal agencies, handing a win to a coalition of unions, nonprofits and cities that argue the order exceeded the president's authority.

  • May 30, 2025

    US-China Trade Talks Could Resume After Stall Over Minerals

    Stalled trade talks between the U.S. and China could resume with a phone call between the countries' leaders as early as this week, a Trump economic adviser said Sunday.

  • May 30, 2025

    Convicted Crypto Investor's Wife Says Gov't Can't Seize Funds

    The wife of a bitcoin investor sentenced to prison for concealing millions of dollars from the IRS asked a Texas federal court Friday to stop the federal government from taking her money to help make up for $1 million in restitution stemming from his cryptocurrency sales.

  • May 30, 2025

    IRS Failed To Alert Thousands To Contractor's Data Breach

    Approximately 12,200 letters the Internal Revenue Service sent to individuals and businesses whose tax information was stolen by a former agency contractor were undeliverable for issues such as not having complete addresses, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said.

  • May 30, 2025

    IRS Slow To Convert Nontax Forms To Digital, TIGTA Says

    Only 12% of the Internal Revenue Service's 280 nontax paper forms that require one or more signatures have been converted to digital formats, though plans have been made to speed the process, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reported.

  • May 30, 2025

    Pa. Couple Should Pay $1.77M Tax Bill, Judge Says

    A Pennsylvania couple who purchased a Maserati and a Porsche and took trips to international destinations while owing the Internal Revenue Service $1.77 million should be required to pay those tax debts, a Pennsylvania federal magistrate judge found.

  • May 30, 2025

    Ohio Judge Slams Eaton For Ongoing IRS Disclosure Fight

    An Ohio federal judge denied Eaton Corp.'s bid to withhold foreign employee evaluations from the IRS, ruling Friday that the power management multinational's "astounding amount of effort" to fight disclosure has been a poor use of judicial resources.

  • May 30, 2025

    Taxation With Representation: Kirkland, Cravath, Latham

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, WiseTech completes a $2.1 billion merger with E2open, Acrisure buys a payroll management company for $1.1 billion and Hailey Bieber sells her Rhode skincare and makeup company to e.l.f. beauty for $1 billion.

  • May 30, 2025

    Tax 'Magician' Gets 4 Years For $145M Return Fraud

    A tax preparer who falsified returns to the tune of $145 million in tax losses to the federal government was sentenced to four years in prison — half of what prosecutors had pushed for — after telling a New York federal court that he meant to help poor customers.

  • May 30, 2025

    Weekly Internal Revenue Bulletin

    The Internal Revenue Service's weekly bulletin, issued Friday, included updated interest rates for overpayments and underpayments of tax for the quarter beginning in July.

  • May 29, 2025

    Staffing Co. Seeks $10.8M Tax Refund Under COVID Program

    A staffing company sued the U.S. government for a $10.8 million employment tax refund, telling a Georgia federal court that the IRS has failed to provide payroll tax credits the agency owed the business under a coronavirus relief program.

  • May 29, 2025

    DC Court Blocks Trump's Tariffs As Overreach Of Power

    The International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not empower the president to impose tariffs, the D.C. federal district court said Thursday, ruling that President Donald Trump's global levies are unlawful and barring his administration from enforcing them on two toymakers who challenged the policies.

  • May 29, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Revives Trump Tariffs As It Weighs Appeal

    The Federal Circuit temporarily reinstated President Donald Trump's global tariffs Thursday, a day after the U.S. Court of International Trade held that an emergency law did not give the president "unbounded authority" to impose the measures.

  • May 29, 2025

    IRS Delaying $11M Worker Tax Credit Payout, Hospital Says

    A hospital forced to suspend its normal business as it responded to the COVID-19 pandemic told a Washington federal court Thursday that it's entitled to an $11.5 million tax refund for employee retention credits and that the IRS has failed to deliver the promised aid.

Expert Analysis

  • Tracking The Evolution In Litigation Finance

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    Despite continued innovation, litigation finance remains an immature market with borrowers recieving significantly different terms as lenders learn to value cases, which firms need a strong handle on to ensure lending terms do not overwhelm collateral value, says Robert Wilkins at Lightfoot Franklin.

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: The Perils Of Digital Data Protocols

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    Though stipulated protocols governing the treatment of electronically stored information in litigation are meant to streamline discovery, recent disputes demonstrate that certain missteps in the process can lead to significant inefficiencies, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Maximizing Exemptions Before TCJA Rides Into The Sunset

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    Individuals with taxable estates can optimize the benefits of estate planning strategies like spousal lifetime access trusts by setting them up before increases in estate and gift tax exemptions under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act sunset in January, say attorneys at Katten.

  • A Cold War-Era History Lesson On Due Process

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    The landmark Harry Bridges case from the mid-20th century Red Scare offers important insights on why lawyers must be free of government reprisal, no matter who their client is, says Peter Afrasiabi at One LLP.

  • How BigLaw Executive Orders May Affect Smaller Firms

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    Because of the types of cases they take on, solo practitioners, small law firms and public interest attorneys may find themselves more dramatically affected by the collective impact of recent government action involving the legal industry than even the BigLaw firms named in the executive orders, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • Lawsuits Shouldn't Be Shadow Assets For Foreign Capital

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    Third-party litigation financing amplifies inefficiencies from litigation and facilitates national exposure to foreign influence in the U.S. justice system, so full disclosure of financing arrangements should be required as a matter of institutional integrity, says Roland Eisenhuth at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

  • How To Accelerate Your Post-Attorney Career Transition

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    Professionals seeking to transition to nonattorney careers may encounter skepticism as nontraditional candidates, but there are opportunities for thought leadership and to leverage speaking and writing to accelerate a post-attorney career transition, say Janet Falk at Falk Communications and Evgeny Efremkin at Toronto Metropolitan University.

  • Tariffs And FCA Create Perfect Storm For Importers

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    The Trump administration's aggressive tariff policies pose a high risk to certain importation practices that are particularly likely to trigger False Claims Act enforcement, say attorneys at Jeffer Mangels.

  • US Reassessment Of OECD Tax Deal Is Right Move

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    The wholesale U.S. reevaluation of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's global tax deal ordered by President Donald Trump is a positive step that could ultimately create a more durable international tax system, says Anne Gordon at the National Foreign Trade Council.

  • Measuring And Mitigating Harm From Discriminatory Taxes

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    In response to new tariffs and other recent "America First Trade Policy" pronouncements, corporations should assess and take steps to minimize their potential exposure to discriminatory and reciprocal tax measures that are likely to come, say economists at Charles River Associates.

  • Adapting To Private Practice: From DOJ Leadership To BigLaw

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    The move from government service to private practice can feel like changing one’s identity, but as someone who has left the U.S. Department of Justice twice, I’ve learned that a successful transition requires patience, effort and the realization that the rewards of practicing law don’t come from one particular position, says Richard Donoghue at Pillsbury.

  • How The CRE Industry Is Adapting To Tariff Uncertainty

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    Amid uncertainty about pending tariffs and their potential ripple effects, including higher material costs, supply chain delays and tighter margins, commercial real estate industry players are focusing on strategic planning and risk mitigation, says Daniel Diaz Leyva at Day Pitney.

  • Law Firm Executive Orders Create A Legal Ethics Minefield

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    Recent executive orders targeting BigLaw firms create ethical dilemmas — and raise the specter of civil or criminal liability — for the government attorneys tasked with implementing them and for the law firms that choose to make agreements with the administration, say attorneys at Buchalter.

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