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Tax Articles
Notes from our active practice — IRS audits, appeals, Tax Court litigation, and state and local tax matters. Summaries here link out to the full posts on our regional practice sites.
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Is Homeless a Requirement for an IRS Payment Agreement?
Indifference. It is generally defined as “lack of interest, concern, or sympathy.” Those who are unfortunate enough to work with the government employees to resolve a case or matter often have a profound understanding of this term. This is true of just about every government function–be it local, state, or federal. When it comes to…
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Limited Partner Subject to Self-Employment Tax
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…
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Tax Court Clarifies Employee Tool Plans
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…
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Fixing Trust Fund Recovery Penalties
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…
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Electing Out of the Partnership Audit Regime
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…
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IRS Audits for Insolvent Taxpayers
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…
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Taxes & Defunct Texas Corporations
Our Federal tax laws often look to state law. Differences in state law can expand or limit the IRS’s ability to assess and collect Federal taxes. In Patrick’s Payroll Services, Inc. v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2020-47, the court considers whether a defunct Michigan corporation can bring suit against the IRS. This case provides an opportunity…
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Texas Franchise Tax: What are COGS?
With advance tax planning, it is often possible to avoid the Texas franchise tax. If the tax does apply, it can often be minimized by a close reading and application of the rules. The recent Sunstate Equipment Co., LLC vs. Comptroller of Public Accounts, No. 17-0444 (Tex. 2020) case provides an opportunity to consider when…
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The IRS & the Covid-19 Slowdown
The IRS has a track record of halting collection actions when there is a disaster or other major event. As tax attorneys in Austin we saw this in the aftermath of the Hurricane Harvey storms. While a temporary stop to collections can be helpful, it can also cause other problems. If you owe back taxes…
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Property Rights & IRS Levies: Louisiana’s Usufruct
To determine whether the IRS can levy or take property, one has to consider what property the taxpayer owns. State law dictates what property the taxpayer owns. The property laws in most states are similar, which makes applying Federal tax collection law relatively easy. But then there is Louisiana law. Louisiana law differs in many…
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