Federal
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April 01, 2024
Jailed Atty Pleads Not Guilty To Witness Tampering In Tax Case
A Chicago-area lawyer facing more than a dozen criminal tax fraud charges pled not guilty Monday to superseding charges that he tried scripting a bookkeeper's anticipated testimony, but he'll have to wait to learn whether he'll remain jailed until his upcoming retrial.
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April 01, 2024
Texas Tax Man Gets 3 Years, Must Pay $6.7M For Fake Filings
A Texas man who pled guilty to assisting with the preparation of false tax returns will serve three years in prison and pay restitution of $6.7 million, a Texas federal court ruled.
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April 01, 2024
Wis. Couple Must Pay $1.5M In Back Taxes, US Tells Court
A Wisconsin federal court should force a couple who owe more than $1.5 million in back taxes to pay up, the U.S. government said.
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March 29, 2024
Petition Watch: Off-Label Ads, Retiree Discrimination & PPE
A Utah attorney has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether allegedly retaliatory IRS summonses can be quashed, and two former pharmaceutical executives are challenging the constitutionality of their convictions for marketing the off-label use of a drug. Here, Law360 looks at recently filed petitions that you might've missed.
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March 29, 2024
100 Projects Get Share Of $4B In Advanced Energy Tax Credits
More than 100 projects across 35 states received a share of the $4 billion in tax credit funding that incentivizes investment in new or refurbished facilities that manufacture critical products and materials that support the clean energy supply chain, the U.S. government announced Friday.
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March 29, 2024
APA Work Doubled In 2023, IRS Report Says
The Internal Revenue Service finalized more than twice as many advance pricing agreements for U.S. multinational corporations in 2023 as in the previous year, according to an agency report released Friday.
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March 29, 2024
IRS Clarifies Low-Income Bonus Energy Credit Applications
The Internal Revenue Service released guidance Friday on requirements and other application information for solar and wind project owners that want to apply for this year's bonus tax credit program for building their facilities in low-income communities.
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March 29, 2024
Senate Bill Seeks Credit For No-Emission Electric Lawn Tools
A bill introduced Friday in the Senate would provide small businesses with a tax credit on the purchase of zero-emission electric landscaping equipment.
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March 29, 2024
Green Energy Credit Sales Spur Surge In Tax Insurance
A new way for project owners to monetize clean energy tax credits by selling them for cash has turbocharged demand for insurance policies to cover various risks tied to the transactions, which can often be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
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March 29, 2024
Tax Preparer Gets 30 Months For $780K COVID Aid Scheme
A North Carolina tax preparer who fraudulently obtained $780,000 in pandemic relief loans and laundered money was sentenced in federal court to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release, prosecutors announced.
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March 29, 2024
Atty Called A Flight Risk In $1.3 Billion Tax Fraud Case
An attorney serving a 23-year prison sentence for tax fraud in a $1.3 billion conservation easement scheme is a flight risk and should remain in federal custody while he waits for his appeal, the government told a Georgia federal court Friday.
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March 29, 2024
Income From Schools' Reinsurance Excluded, IRS Says
A nonprofit insurance company can exclude income received for providing reinsurance coverage for a conglomerate of public charter schools from its gross income as its work is "an essential government function," the Internal Revenue Service said in a ruling published Friday.
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March 29, 2024
Weekly Internal Revenue Bulletin
The Internal Revenue Service issued its weekly bulletin Friday, which included proposed regulations for claiming a tax credit for the production of qualified clean hydrogen.
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March 28, 2024
Tax Court Revokes Treasury's Easement Perpetuity Rule
A divided U.S. Tax Court on Thursday invalidated Treasury rules regarding requirements for charitable donations of conservation easements to protect conservation purposes in perpetuity, granting a partial win to an Oklahoma partnership fighting to keep its $14.8 million conservation easement deduction.
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March 28, 2024
Corp. Transparency Act Overbroad, Mich. Group Tells Court
The Corporate Transparency Act is overbroad and violates both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, the Small Business Association of Michigan told a federal court in a case similar to one currently in the Eleventh Circuit.
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March 28, 2024
Abuse Of Discretion Claims Fall Flat In $13M Tax Court Case
The federal government may proceed with collecting on a $13 million tax liability after a Colorado woman failed to prove that there was an abuse of discretion when the IRS sustained a levy against her, the U.S. Tax Court ruled Thursday.
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March 28, 2024
Musician's Trips To Japan Not Business, Tax Court Rules
A musician who said he traveled to Japan to conduct market research and learn about the country's music culture cannot claim a deduction of nearly $20,000 in travel expenses, the U.S. Tax Court ruled Thursday.
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March 28, 2024
Canadian In Wash. Owes Over $1M FBAR Penalty, US Says
A Canadian man living in Washington state owes more than $1 million in penalties for failing to report bank accounts he held in Montreal, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a complaint filed in an attempt to collect the money.
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March 28, 2024
Doctor Allowed To Withdraw NBA Fraud Plea, Gets June Trial
A Manhattan federal judge will allow a Seattle-area doctor to pull back his guilty plea and go to trial in June, against prosecutors' objections, in a case alleging he assisted a cohort of retired NBA players to create fake invoices to submit to the league's healthcare plan.
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March 28, 2024
2nd Circ. Urged To Uphold Dual Citizen's FBAR Penalties
A New York federal court correctly upheld tax penalties against a dual French citizen for hiding millions of dollars in six foreign accounts, the U.S. government told the Second Circuit, urging it to reject the woman's claims that American authorities violated the Hague Convention in pursuing her.
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March 28, 2024
IRS Floats Expanding Tax Info Disclosures To Census Bureau
The Internal Revenue Service proposed rules Thursday that would expand what tax return information can be disclosed to the U.S. Census Bureau.
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March 28, 2024
IRS Investigated $9B In Potential COVID Aid Fraud
The criminal investigation arm of the Internal Revenue Service investigated nearly $9 billion in potential fraud cases related to coronavirus relief funds, the agency said Thursday.
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March 28, 2024
Nev. Estate Owes Over $3.8M In FBAR Penalties, Court Rules
The estate of a Nevada entrepreneur must pay over $3.8 million in penalties and interest for willfully failing to report his foreign bank accounts in Belize, the Bahamas and Panama, a federal district court ruled.
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March 27, 2024
Hunter Biden Judge Doubts Tax Charges Politically Motivated
A California federal judge Wednesday appeared unpersuaded by Hunter Biden's claim that the special counsel's decision to file criminal tax charges after a plea deal collapsed was motivated by pressure from Republican lawmakers, remarking that "there really is no evidence to support that contention."
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March 27, 2024
Zaxby's Co-Founder's $43M Easement Fight Headed For Trial
A trial will be needed to determine whether a co-founder of the Zaxby's restaurant chain and his wife are entitled to a $43.3 million tax refund for donations of conservation easements, a Georgia federal judge ruled Wednesday, saying the value of the easements remains in dispute.
Expert Analysis
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What Tax-Exempt Orgs. Need From Energy Credit Guidance
Guidance clarifying the Inflation Reduction Act’s credit regime, expected from the U.S. Department of the Treasury this summer, should help tax-exempt organizations determine the benefits of clean energy projects and integrate alternative energy investments into their activities, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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Unconventional Profits Interest Structures Find New Support
A recent U.S. Tax Court ruling should provide comfort that less-than-plain-vanilla profits interest structures, created to achieve complicated economic arrangements, can succeed in generating more optimal tax outcomes, provided the terms are properly drafted, says Daren Shaver at Hanson Bridgett.
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Roadblocks For Cannabis Employers Setting Up 401(k) Plans
Though the Internal Revenue Code and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act generally allow cannabis businesses to establish 401(k) plans for their employees, companies must still pick their way through uncertainties around tax deductions and recruiting reliable vendors, say attorneys at Shipman & Goodwin.
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How Foreign Info Return Penalty Case May Benefit Taxpayers
The U.S. Tax Court's recent decision that the Internal Revenue Service cannot penalize taxpayers for failing to file foreign corporation information returns may give similarly situated taxpayers an opportunity to also avoid penalties, provided they protect their rights before the decision is overturned or mooted by legislation, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.
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What's Unique — And What's Not — In Trump Protective Order
A Manhattan judge's recent protective order limiting former President Donald Trump's access to evidence included restrictions uniquely tailored to the defendant, which should remind defense attorneys that it's always a good idea to fight these seemingly standard orders, says Julia Jayne at Jayne Law.
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The Nuts And Bolts Of IRS Domestic Content Tax Credit
Recent IRS guidance provides specifics on how renewable energy projects can qualify for bonus tax credits by meeting U.S. domestic content rules, but also creates a qualification framework that will be complicated for project developers to navigate, say Scott Cockerham and Wolfram Pohl at Orrick.
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How Cities Can Tackle Post-Pandemic Budgeting Dilemmas
Due to increasing office vacancies around the country, cities may consider politically unpopular actions to avoid bankruptcy, but they could also look to the capital markets to ride out the current real estate crisis and achieve debt service savings to help balance their budgets, say attorneys at Cadwalader.
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Guidance Adds Clarity To Energy Communities Bonus Credits
Recent IRS guidance on the Inflation Reduction Act's changes to tax credits for renewable energy projects offers much-needed pointers for developers and financing parties, and should allow them to more comfortably incorporate special bonus credits for projects in energy communities into their transactions, say Jorge Medina and Ira Aghai at Shearman.
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Taxing The Digital Economy: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
U.S. tech companies should watch for important developments in international taxation, including the resolution of Apple's decade-old state aid case, growing frustration with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's global tax plan and adoption of the digital services tax instead, says Joyce Beebe at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.
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Big Tax Changes For Multinational Cos. In Budget Proposal
The Biden administration’s fiscal year 2024 budget proposes changes that would materially alter decades-old Internal Revenue Code provisions, requiring a shift in multinational corporations' tax planning strategies comparable to that required after enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, say Xenia Garofalo and Kyle Colonna at Eversheds Sutherland.
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SVB Collapse Reinvigorates Bank Accounting Debate
Silicon Valley Bank's sudden collapse revives questions over whether fair value or amortized cost accounting is the most appropriate for banks' financial reporting — a controversy that's crucial for understanding what information could have helped market participants better understand SVB's financial condition, say consultants at Analysis Group.
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Brownfield Renewables Guidance Leaves Site Eligibility Murky
Recent IRS guidance sheds some light on the Inflation Reduction Act's incentives for renewable energy development on contaminated sites — but the eligibility of certain sites for brownfield status remains uncertain, say Megan Caldwell and Jon Micah Goeller at Husch Blackwell.
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Get Ready For IRS Criminal Crackdown On Crypto
Recent developments at the IRS, from a new operating plan to the announcement of a centralized data center, signal that the agency is ramping up criminal enforcement against those using digital assets to evade tax liabilities — and given its high conviction rate, companies and individuals must prioritize compliance, say attorneys at BakerHostetler.