It is helpful to remind taxpayers now and then that there do exist plenty of bad-apple advisors out there. Quite often, we at ESA find ourselves helping our clients wind-down, mitigate, and stop erroneous positions and planning put into by place by such bad-apple advisors. Our firm has even assisted in defending audits and tax…
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For a few months, the short and mid-term applicable federal rates have been on the heels of one another. These rates ride with treasury rates and the economy in general. For some reason, here lately the mid-term rates have been lower on occasion than the short-term rates. I even caught myself thinking, is this a…
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Timely mailing is timely filing. Seriously, it is. In the case of Curtiss T. Williams, we are reminded of how important it is to ensure compliance and maintain proof of compliance with the mailbox rule of the Internal Revenue Code. While really just a mundane case of a taxpayer getting his petition dismissed due to late filing,…
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Overview The United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion on June 21, 2019 in North Carolina Department of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust ruling that a trust beneficiary’s residence alone is not sufficient grounds for a state to tax a trust’s undistributed income. This decision disallowed the assessment of more than…
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After the Summa Holdings case, the substance over form doctrine was left with a significant black eye by the Sixth Circuit. On May 15, 2019, the Sixth Circuit, upheld a transferee liability claim against shareholders of a Tennessee corporation while also clarifying its holding is Summa Holdings. While the Summa Holdings discussion is certainly interesting, the…
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In the recent case of In Re Jones, 123 AFTR 2d 2019-_________ (Bktcy. Ct. IL), an individual taxpayer and petitioner for bankruptcy relief under chapter 7 was able to withdraw $50,000 from his individual retirement account (“IRA”), deposit the funds into his personal account, spend $30,000 of the funds on personal items (primarily lottery tickets),…
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On March 27, 2019, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) announced an investigation into potentially abusive syndicated conservation transactions. Senator Grassley commented on the investigation saying: ““There are very legitimate purposes for the conservation easement provisions of the tax code. But when a handful of individuals cook up a scheme to cash in at the…
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At our firm, we use a host of technological tools. As the attorney responsible for research, acquiring, and implementing our tools, I am required to invest a tremendous amount of time in our tools. This article changes pace a bit and may be geared to a different audience, our peers, in hopes to engage in…
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One of the more common engagements for our firm is to assist with business sales and acquisitions. This article is part of a series of articles which will walk through and discuss the steps typically associated with the sale of a business. This series of articles will discuss the process and means of selling a…
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Overview As of November 23, 2018, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) published proposed regulations providing some valuable guidance with respect to the upcoming sunset of the increased estate and gift tax exemption in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“TCJA”). With the TCJA, the estate tax exemption amount was increased from $5.49 Million to $11.18…
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