Tag: Houston Tax Attorney

There are times when a business structure or transaction no longer makes sense. This may be due to a change in the business environment, such as swings in the economy or unexpected gains or losses. It can also arise due to a change in the owners’ personal circumstances, such as a divorce or death of……

The Groundhog Day movie from the 90’s starring Bill Murray portrays a news anchorman who lives the same day over and over again. He is stuck in a loop. Each day starts the same way. Bill tries to alter his conduct and he interacts with different people throughout the movie. The other characters act and……

Congress has slowly upped the amount that can be transferred free of estate and gift taxes. This amount has changed over time. It was $1 million in 2003. It is now just over $11.5 million in 2020. This means that many people do not need to worry about estate and gift taxes. Estate and gift……

The mortgage interest deduction seems simple enough. The Code provides a deduction for mortgage interest that is paid during the year. It starts with a broad grant: There shall be allowed as a deduction all interest paid or accrued within the taxable year on indebtedness. Then these 18 words in a single sentence are followed……

Tax is often about timing. Timing issues are those where the taxpayer defers the requirement to pay taxes to a later date. Preferably a later date that is many, many years in the future. The hope is that the taxpayer can retain the amounts that would have been paid in tax today and use the……

When it comes to tax law, there are quite a few known-unknowns. These are tax questions that have been raised tangentially in court cases and rulings, but have not been fully answered. These situations confuse taxpayers. Tax practitioners are often asked to provide answers. The answers from tax practitioners often differ, as practitioners have different……

Prior to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“TCJA”) of 2018, it was common for employers to simply pay employees more and leave it to the employees to deduct their employee business expenses on their personal income tax returns. The TCJA limited the employee’s ability to deduct employee business expenses. Many employers responded by adopting……

The public may not be fully cognizant of this, but, the IRS is in the business of processing information and making decisions. It accomplishes this by siloing work on tax returns and accounts. The siloed work is intended to allow the IRS to process and make consistent decisions based on a very large volume of……

When it comes to income taxes and IRS audits, there are a lot of procedural rules that are counter-intuitive. Even if one thinks they are half-baked, the rules are the rules. They can have serious consequences. The centralized partnership audit regime is an example. Tax advisors often instruct their clients to elect out of the……

When times are good, we don’t need to worry about the tax loss rules, the net operating loss (“NOL”) rules, or even the bankruptcy tax rules. But these rules are front and center in most tax planning and advice during and after an economic downturn. We saw this with the 2001 dot com bust, the……