In a recent case out of the Court of Appeals for the State of Mississippi, the Court held that a writing titled an “Article of Agreement” (the “Agreement”) was sufficient to convey an interest in real estate to the decedent’s sisters.[1] The primary issue to be decided by the Court was whether the Agreement executed…
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In a recent article, my colleague Gray Edmondson covered the recent Supreme Court case, Loper Bright[1], and the demise of the Chevron Doctrine.[2] The Loper Bright case was handed down by the Supreme Court on June 28, 2024. As Gray explains in his article, the Chevron case has to do with determining the validity of…
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Under IRC §121, gain on the sale of a principal residence of up to $250,000 (or $500,000 for spouses, see below) may be excluded from gross income. This may seem pretty straightforward, and many times it is, but it also has numerous requirements in order to apply, as well as numerous exceptions that may apply.…
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What is the CTA? Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”) at the end of 2020 as part of a larger bill referred to as the Anti-Money Laundering Act, which in turn was part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021. It was signed into law by President Biden on January 1, 2021. The…
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Split dollar life insurance arrangements can take on a number of forms, and the exact structure of the arrangement determines the tax consequences, which can become complicated quickly. In a recent case out of the District Court of Ohio, the court held that an insurance arrangement between a single member C corporation, Peter E. McGowan…
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Recently, there seems to have been a higher number of cases than usual coming down from courts regarding Tax Court jurisdictional issues. My colleague Parker Durham covered a few of them in a recent article.[1] In a recent case out of the Court of Federal Claims, yet another jurisdictional issue arose.[2] In the present case,…
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In a recent Chief Counsel Advice Memorandum[1] (“CCM”), the office of the IRS Chief Counsel debunks the income taxation, or lack thereof, found in promotional materials promoting a structure known as a “Non-grantor, irrevocable, complex, discretionary, spendthrift trust”, with a note that the structure may be referred to by several other similar but slightly different…
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In a prior article, I wrote about the importance of properly prepared Form 706 Estate Tax Return, discussing a Private Letter Ruling (“PLR”) that highlighted some common mistakes made on the Form 706.[1] In that article, I discussed issues related to the marital deduction and the allocation of a decedent’s unused Generation Skipping Transfer Tax…
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A recent Private Letter Ruling (“PLR”) issued by the IRS highlighted the importance of a properly prepared Form 706 Estate (and Generation Skipping Transfer) Tax Return (“706”).[1] The PLR granted the requesting Estate a 120-day extension to make a QTIP election (discussed below) as well as divide the QTIP Trust into a Generation Skipping Transfer…
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In a recent Tax Court case[1], the Court held that the combined value of ten checks written prior to the decedent’s death, but cashed after his death, was included in the gross estate of the decedent. However, as discussed below, the IRS had conceded that three of the ten checks were not included in the…
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