Tax Court Wife of Convicted White Collar Criminal Denied Innocent Spouse Relief Taxpayer-Wife sought relief from joint liability originating in part from Taxpayer-Husband’s embezzlement of funds from a church for which he was convicted of fraud, identity theft and tax evasion . The Tax Court upheld the IRS’s determination that Taxpayer-Wife was not eligible for…
In Lamprecht v Commissioner, TC Memo 2022-91 (link to case), a John Doe summons tolled the statute of limitations and allowed the IRS to assess a 20% accuracy related penalty more than 6 years after the Taxpayers’ original income tax returns were filed. The IRS was able to assess the penalty even though the Taxpayer…
On Monday November 2, 2020, the IRS announced the new Taxpayer Relief Initiative (“TRI”) in a News Release (IR-2020-248) (link) and an IRS Closer Look blog post by the head of IRS Collections, Darren Guillot (Deputy Commissioner, SB/SE Collection and Operations Support) (link). TRI provides some changes to IRS collection procedures to help taxpayers more…
On August 8, 2020, President Trump signed four executive orders. One of the orders directs the Secretary of the Treasury to use the Secretary’s authority to defer certain payroll tax obligations for some employees (the “Executive Order”). The Executive Order can be found here (link) at the Whitehouse website. The Executive Order provides that Secretary…
On Friday June 5th, 2020, the President signed the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020 (the “PPP Flexibility Act”)[1], which was passed by the House and Senate with almost complete unanimity.[2] The PPP Flexibility Act makes several significant changes to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). Summary of provisions: Adds…
Over the last two weeks, the IRS has put out a flurry of guidance on the recent legislation[1] aimed at providing relief from the economic fallout of the coronavirus. On March 25, 2020, the Commissioner of the IRS announced the People First Initiative (PFI)[2], which is largely predicated on the IRS’s discretion to take or…
On January 15, 2019, the IRS issued a revised IRS Lapsed Appropriations Contingency Plan. Under the revised plan dated January 15, 2019, the IRS is set to recall over 2,000 IRS collections employees, including employees to field calls from taxpayer’s that received collection notices. The recall is based upon authority that provides a limited exception…
Overview In Judge v Comptroller, No. 17-IN-00-0724 (Sept. 25, 2018)(link), the Maryland Tax Court overturned the Maryland Comptroller’s finding that Petitioner was personally liable for Maryland income tax withholdings for the period after the Petitioner was no longer involved in the business operated by a Maryland limited liability company (“LLC”). Background At issue was the…
In Hirsch v. Commissioner (here) the Tax Court held that the taxpayer’s “tax home” for purposes of the foreign earned income exclusion (I.R.C. section 911) was in the New York metropolitan area, despite the fact that the taxpayer resided in Israel, because regulatory restrictions on his professional practice limited his ability to communicate with clients…
Flume v. Commissioner (here) revolved around one noteworthy issue: did the taxpayer’s reliance on the advice of his tax return preparer spare the taxpayer from $110,000 in penalties for the taxpayer’s failure to report foreign investments on Form 5471? The taxpayer argued that he relied on the expertise of his tax return preparer to guide…
