The following tale is the first in a two part series relating to a couple of recent decisions from the United States Tax Court. Both decisions center around the often-litigated topic of a taxpayer’s profit-motive and whether those taxpayers should have been the allowed the losses stemming from their breeding businesses. On December 21, 2021, [...]
Appearing in the October of 2021 issue of ALI CLE’s The Practical Lawyer is an article by Kathleen E. (Splett) Pfutzenreuter and Benjamin A. Wagner addressing a variety of tax topics that small and solo firm lawyers should be ready to answer. The tax topics covered include: when to talk to a tax accountant or [...]
The proper classification of workers is a decision that is critical to the success or failure of many small businesses. This is especially true in light of the on-going public health crisis, where margins have been squeezed to their absolute limits. For more information relating to the classification of workers, please see these previous blog [...]
It is not uncommon for small businesses to rely on friends and family for loans to assist the business in meeting operating expenses. This is even more true given the on-going pandemic. Small businesses are scrambling to make sure they can meeting their operating expenses. Unfortunately, many of those small business owners are so focused [...]
People often joke that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. Well, it turns out that, when it comes to the report of Foreign Bank and Financial Account (FBAR) penalties, death may have finally met its match. The Southern District of Florida issued a decision in United States v. Green, 2020 BL 165965 [...]
On April 24, 2020, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued an internal memo advising its employees that it would be recalling those employees involved in “mission critical” operations. This internal memo represents the most significant update to the IRS’s “People First Initiative,” a program intended to respond to the challenges of COVID-19 by providing a [...]
The recently imposed social distancing measures that are critical and essential to our nation’s battle with the coronavirus have had a dramatic impact on everyone’s everyday life. No one is exempt or excused from that impact. This includes our nation’s taxing authorities. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has created and is updating a website to [...]
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced, in a recent Information Release and Fact Sheet, that it is going to make more site visits to taxpayers who have delinquent-filed tax returns. Fact Sheet 2020-02 notes that this increased use of compliance strategies is being fueled by the IRS’s increased use of data analytics, research, and other [...]
The fight over who meets the definition of a “real estate professional” is not a new one. Fortunately, the taxpayer’s burden for satisfying that definition has only been eased by the expansion of digital tools available for tracking time. That being said, the United States Tax Court’s (Court’s) memorandum opinion in Hairston v. Comm’r of [...]
For many taxpayers with multiple active business interests, the material participation test can be a significant tax trap. If the elements of that test are not met, the impact could be that the taxpayer is limited in how the income/loss from that business is recognized on their personal tax return. A recent decision in the [...]