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Using the Substantial Compliance Doctrine to Defeat the IRS
By on August 31, 2020
On August 17th, the Tax Court held in favor of the taxpayers regarding a $4 million charitable contribution deduction for donating land to a town in Emanouil v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2020-10. The IRS had challenged the taxpayer's deduction for a number of reasons including the taxpayers' appraisals did not include all the required information and therefore failed to comply with the qualified appraisal requirements. In holding for the taxpayers, the Tax Court cited the taxpayer-friendly substantial compliance doctrine.
New Senate Committee Report Delivers More Bad News for Syndicated Conservation Easement Transactions
By on August 28, 2020
As if the onslaught of recent losses in Tax Court was not enough, investors in syndicated conservation easements now have more to worry about. On August 25, 2020, the Senate Finance Committee released a bipartisan report condemning syndicated conservation easements as abusive and encouraging the IRS to take further action to ferret out such abuses.
By on August 26, 2020
As previously reported (Prior Blog Post), last summer the IRS sent letters to taxpayers with virtual currency transactions that potentially failed to report income and pay the resulting tax from those transactions or did not report them properly. Well as the old saying goes, 1 is good, but 2 is better, as this summer the IRS initiates a second wave of letters to cryptocurrency users that suggest they may have misreported their transactions.
By on August 5, 2020
Parts I–IV of this series have presented a general discussion of what constitutes indebtedness, the general consequences of significant modifications of indebtedness, and a number of statutory and congressionally-enacted exceptions to cancellation of indebtedness income ("COD Income"). This installment will build on these concepts and discuss in a more pragmatic manner the application of the statutory exceptions to COD Income in Section 108 of the Internal Revenue Code (the "Code").
