Federal
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April 15, 2024
Exxon Seeks $1.8B Tax Refund As Qatar Deal Trial Opens
Exxon Mobil Corp. argued Monday in Texas federal court that its deal with Qatar to extract natural gas from the country's coast was a partnership, rather than a lease agreement, saying at the start of a trial that it's entitled to get $1.8 billion in tax benefits back from the IRS.
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April 15, 2024
House OKs Ending Exemption For Terrorist-Supporting Orgs
The House passed legislation Monday that would authorize the Internal Revenue Service to suspend the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit organization found by the U.S. Treasury secretary to support foreign terrorism.
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April 15, 2024
8th Circ. Urged To Revive IRS' Pricing For Medtronic
The U.S. government urged the Eighth Circuit on Monday to side with the IRS' method for pricing the intangible property that medical device maker Medtronic licensed to a Puerto Rican affiliate, arguing it's the only way to determine arm's-length royalty rates.
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April 15, 2024
Donor Fund Regs Could Imperil Nonprofit-Sponsored Projects
So-called fiscal sponsorship funds set up at established nonprofits to help new projects start charitable work could be unexpectedly threatened by proposed IRS and Treasury rules on donor-advised funds that could subject such arrangements to burdensome taxes, experts say.
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April 15, 2024
IRS Boasts Better Service, Direct File Progress On Tax Day
The IRS achieved an 88% level of service this year on its phone lines and maintained an average call wait time of three minutes while answering more than a million more calls than last year's filing season, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced Monday.
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April 15, 2024
Tax Court Finds Woman Liable Despite Divorce Decree
A Connecticut woman is jointly and severably liable for tax liabilities despite a divorce decree that calls for them to be her ex-husband's responsibility, according to a transcript released Monday by the U.S. Tax Court.
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April 15, 2024
AICPA Calls For Clearer Forms For Tax-Exempt Orgs
The Internal Revenue Service ought to clarify filing requirements for forms in order to simplify the filing process for tax-exempt organizations, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants said in a letter made public Monday.
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April 15, 2024
'Magician' Tax Preparer Arrested On $100M Fraud Charges
The owner of a New York tax preparation business who was known as "the magician" was arrested Monday on charges that he caused more than $100 million in tax losses to the government over a decade, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
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April 15, 2024
Madoff Victims Can't Claim Theft Deduction, Tax Court Rules
A New York couple who fell victim to Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme were properly denied a theft loss deduction because they did not own the assets that were stolen, the U.S. Tax Court ruled Monday.
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April 15, 2024
9th Circ. To Hear Hunter Biden Appeal In Criminal Tax Case
The Ninth Circuit will hear Hunter Biden's argument that a California federal judge wrongly rejected requests by his defense team to toss a criminal tax case that Biden has claimed is politically motivated and vindictive, according to a notice filed Monday.
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April 15, 2024
IRS Waives Penalties For Not Paying Corp. Minimum Tax
The Internal Revenue Service is waiving penalties for failure to make estimated quarterly payments of the corporate alternative minimum tax through at least April 15, the agency said Monday.
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April 15, 2024
IRS Improves Adherence To FOIA Rules, TIGTA Says
The Internal Revenue Service "generally followed" Freedom of Information Act protocols for redacting taxpayer information from October 2022 to March 2023 — a considerable improvement from past reports, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said Monday.
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April 12, 2024
Petition Watch: Judge DQs, 'Excessive' Damages & Price Wars
A former al-Qaida member has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify disqualification protocol for judges overseeing a case related to their prior work as a government attorney, and energy drink manufacturers want the court to develop a modern-day test to determine if companies qualify as price-discrimination competitors. Here's four high court petitions filed recently that you might've missed.
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April 12, 2024
FedEx Not Entitled To $84.6M In Tax Credit Dispute, US Says
FedEx is not entitled to a judgment of nearly $84.6 million that the company requested in March for its foreign tax credit dispute, the federal government said Friday in a Tennessee federal court filing.
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April 12, 2024
4 Takeaways From Tax Court Nix Of Easement Perpetuity Rule
The U.S. Tax Court's scrapping of an IRS rule on the perpetuity requirements for conservation easements could draw yet more judicial scrutiny to the agency's rulemaking and shift the focus of easement disputes to how the transactions are valued. Here, Law360 examines four key takeaways from the decision.
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April 12, 2024
OECD Base Erosion Project Still Percolating, Think Tank Says
Policymakers should recognize that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's tax project from roughly a decade ago to reduce base erosion and profit shifting may still be affecting companies' behavior, according to a publication released Friday from the fiscally conservative-leaning Tax Foundation.
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April 12, 2024
Woman Pleads Guilty To $1.3M COVID Tax Credit Fraud
A California woman pled guilty to fraudulently obtaining $2 million in COVID-19 government loans and falsely claiming $1.3 million in tax credits, crimes that could result in a 20-year prison sentence, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
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April 12, 2024
Final 'Look-Through' Rules Coming Soon, IRS Official Says
The IRS is about to release final regulations that would, in a manner of speaking, look through the corporate owners of real estate investment entities to determine whether they are domestically controlled, an agency official said Friday.
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April 12, 2024
The Week In Trump: Catch Up On The Ex-President's Cases
Donald Trump and his legal team proved that they are nothing if not persistent as they repeatedly tried — and failed — to hit the brakes on the former president's porn star hush money trial in Manhattan.
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April 12, 2024
Construction Co. Owner Cops To Causing IRS $2.8M Tax Loss
A Massachusetts construction company owner pled guilty to running an "off-the-books" cash payroll scheme that cost the federal government $2.8 million in tax losses, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
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April 12, 2024
IRS Adds 12 Census Tracts For Alternative Fuel Credit
The Internal Revenue Service added additional census tracts to the list of those where people and businesses can qualify for the alternative fuel vehicle refueling property credit, the agency said Friday.
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April 12, 2024
Weekly Internal Revenue Bulletin
The Internal Revenue Service issued its weekly bulletin Friday, featuring a clarification surrounding qualified student loan bonds.
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April 12, 2024
Taxation With Representation: Freshfields, Kirkland & Ellis
In this week's Taxation with Representation, eBay acquires Collectors' Goldin auction house, Vertex Pharmaceuticals buys Alpine Immune Sciences, Vista Equity Partners purchases Model N and Tradeweb Markets buys Institutional Cash Distributors.
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April 12, 2024
IRS Schedules Advisory Council Meeting For May
The Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council will hold its next meeting May 8, the agency announced Friday.
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April 12, 2024
Moses & Singer Hires New Private Clients Chair, Trusts Expert
Moses & Singer LLP has hired a new chairman of its private clients group, who joins the firm after spending over a decade navigating trusts and estates matters with Kudman Trachten Aloe Posner LLP.
Expert Analysis
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Judicial Independence Is Imperative This Election Year
As the next election nears, the judges involved in the upcoming trials against former President Donald Trump increasingly face political pressures and threats of violence — revealing the urgent need to safeguard judicial independence and uphold the rule of law, says Benes Aldana at the National Judicial College.
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Spartan Arbitration Tactics Against Well-Funded Opponents
Like the ancient Spartans who held off a numerically superior Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae, trial attorneys and clients faced with arbitration against an opponent with a bigger war chest can take a strategic approach to create a pass to victory, say Kostas Katsiris and Benjamin Argyle at Venable.
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What Recent Study Shows About AI's Promise For Legal Tasks
Amid both skepticism and excitement about the promise of generative artificial intelligence in legal contexts, the first randomized controlled trial studying its impact on basic lawyering tasks shows mixed but promising results, and underscores the need for attorneys to proactively engage with AI, says Daniel Schwarcz at University of Minnesota Law School.
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How FinCEN Proposal Expands RE Transaction Obligations
Against a regulatory backdrop foreshadowing anti-money laundering efforts in the real estate sector, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's proposed rule significantly expands reporting requirements for certain nonfinanced residential real estate transfers and necessitates careful review, say attorneys at Fried Frank.
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What To Know About Employee Retention Credit Disclosures
Employers that filed potentially erroneous employee retention credit claims should take certain steps to determine whether the IRS’ voluntary disclosure program is a good fit and, if so, prepare a strong application before the window closes on March 22, say attorneys at Dentons.
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Business Litigators Have A Source Of Untapped Fulfillment
As increasing numbers of attorneys struggle with stress and mental health issues, business litigators can find protection against burnout by remembering their important role in society — because fulfillment in one’s work isn’t just reserved for public interest lawyers, say Bennett Rawicki and Peter Bigelow at Hilgers Graben.
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Unpacking FinCEN's Proposed Real Estate Transaction Rule
Phil Jelsma and Ulrick Matsunaga at Crosbie Gliner take a close look at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's recently proposed rulemaking — which mandates new disclosures for professionals involved in all-cash real estate deals — and discuss best next steps for the broad range of businesses that could be affected.
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Think Like A Lawyer: Forget Everything You Know About IRAC
The mode of legal reasoning most students learn in law school, often called “Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion,” or IRAC, erroneously frames analysis as a separate, discrete step, resulting in disorganized briefs and untold obfuscation — but the fix is pretty simple, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.
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The Corporate Transparency Act Isn't Dead Yet
After an Alabama federal court's ruling last week rendering the Corporate Transparency Act unconstitutional, changes to the law may ultimately be required, but ongoing compliance is still the best course of action for most, says George Singer at Holland & Hart.
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How New EU Tax And Transfer Pricing Rules May Affect M&A
Companies involved in mergers and acquisitions may need to adjust fiscal due diligence procedures to ensure they consider potential far-reaching effects of newly implemented transfer pricing measures, such as newly implemented global minimum tax and European Union anti-tax avoidance directives and proposals, says Patrick Tijhuis at BDO.
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Employers, Prep For Shorter Stock Awards Settlement Cycle
Companies that provide equity compensation in the form of publicly traded stock will soon have one less day to complete such transactions under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Nasdaq rules — so employers should implement expedited equity compensation stock settlement and payroll tax deposit procedures now, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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Demystifying IRS' Claims Of $851B Return On Investment
The IRS' recently released analysis, estimating a $851 billion return on the government’s $80 billion investment in the agency, represents a huge increase over its 2022 estimate and that of the Congressional Budget Office and may be best viewed as a best-case scenario, says Joyce Beebe at the Baker Institute.
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How Firms Can Ensure Associate Gender Parity Lasts
Among associates, women now outnumber men for the first time, but progress toward gender equality at the top of the legal profession remains glacially slow, and firms must implement time-tested solutions to ensure associates’ gender parity lasts throughout their careers, say Kelly Culhane and Nicole Joseph at Culhane Meadows.