Federal
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January 29, 2025
White House Rescinds Trump's Spending Freeze
The White House on Wednesday rescinded a directive freezing federal funding, saying it wants to end litigation and confusion, but said the move will not end a review of spending to ensure compliance with a series of executive orders by the president.
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January 29, 2025
11th Circ. Won't Take Back Up IRS Summons' Constitutionality
The Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday declined to revisit its November decision rejecting a taxpayer's argument that an Internal Revenue Service summons violated his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
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January 28, 2025
Lobbying Is Not A Crime, Madigan Co-Defendant Tells Jury
An attorney for an ex-lobbyist standing trial on public corruption charges alongside former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan told jurors on Tuesday the government failed to establish that his client conspired to trade the ex-speaker's support for do-nothing jobs, saying all that really happened was "lobbying and politics."
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January 28, 2025
IRS Whistleblower Office Could Survive Trump Purge
As President Donald Trump pushes to slash federal spending and gut government agencies, the Internal Revenue Service Whistleblower Office may remain largely unscathed since its recent efforts to efficiently reward and protect those who report illicit tax activity could align with the administration's goals.
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January 28, 2025
Amid Big Bets, Tom Goldstein Argued 'Poker Is Not Gambling'
A federal indictment's jarring portrayal of pioneering U.S. Supreme Court advocate Tom Goldstein as an "ultrahigh-stakes" gambler who dodged taxes has left the legal community virtually speechless. But Goldstein's status as a serious poker player was not a secret, and in past court cases, he proclaimed the card game "fundamentally dissimilar" from conventional gambling, even while preparing to wager millions on matches.
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January 28, 2025
Trump Pledges Tariffs On Semiconductors, Chips, Drugs
The U.S. will soon place tariffs on foreign-manufactured semiconductors, computer chips and pharmaceuticals in an effort to convince foreign companies to move their manufacturing operations stateside, President Donald Trump told House Republicans at a conference.
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January 28, 2025
Ukrainian Duo Get 15 Years In $25M Tax Fraud Case
A Florida federal judge sentenced two Ukrainian men to 15 years in prison after they pled guilty to laundering money from a hotel staffing scheme that the U.S. government said cost it $25 million in taxes.
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January 28, 2025
Miami Tax Biz's False Filings Case On Hold After Settlement
The U.S. Department of Justice and the owner of a Miami-based tax preparation business reached a settlement in a suit accusing her of filing fraudulent returns on behalf of clients, a Florida federal judge said Tuesday, administratively closing the case.
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January 28, 2025
Tax Group Of The Year: Cravath
Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP helped secure high-profile mergers and acquisitions for major media and communications companies in 2024, having played key roles in Paramount's $28 billion merger agreement with Skydance Media and a separate deal involving Verizon Communications, earning the law firm a spot among the 2024 Law360 Tax Groups of the Year.
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January 28, 2025
Judge Temporarily Halts Trump's Funding Freeze
A D.C. federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked a Trump administration freeze on federal spending that was set to go into effect at 5 p.m., as a group of nearly two dozen attorneys general filed a separate case challenging what they described as an illegal and potentially catastrophic move.
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January 28, 2025
Wealth Manager Cops To Funding Lifestyle With Client Money
A suburban Philadelphia investment adviser pled guilty in federal court Tuesday morning to charges that he stole more than $20 million of his clients' money, which he spent on international travel, country club dues, and a stake in a New Jersey mini golf course.
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January 27, 2025
Feds' Madigan Informant Is A 'Malignant Tumor,' Jury Told
An attorney for ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan took aim Monday at the former Chicago alderman called as the government's star witness in Madigan's criminal racketeering trial, calling him "a malignant tumor at the heart of this case" and urging jurors not to trust his testimony as they prepare to deliberate on his client's fate.
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January 27, 2025
Senate Confirms Bessent As Treasury Secretary
A bipartisan majority of senators voted Monday to confirm billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as Treasury secretary, putting in place a key member of President Donald Trump's Cabinet.
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January 27, 2025
Meet The Attys Surrounding Pa. Wealth Manager In Fraud Case
By the time Scott Mason and his company Rubicon Wealth Management were hit with criminal and regulatory enforcement claims alleging he stole $20 million from clients, the suburban Philadelphia wealth manager was already defending multiple civil lawsuits in Pennsylvania state court.
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January 27, 2025
SCOTUSblog Publisher Pleads Not Guilty To Tax Crimes
U.S. Supreme Court advocate and SCOTUSblog co-founder Tom Goldstein pled not guilty in Maryland federal court on Monday to charges that he schemed to evade taxes and used funds from his boutique law firm to cover gambling debts.
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January 27, 2025
Tax Pro's Personal Returns Fair Game, 3rd Circ. Affirms
The Third Circuit upheld a Pennsylvania district court's conviction of a tax preparer for filing false returns on behalf of his clients, saying the court didn't make a mistake in allowing the government to submit the preparer's own false returns as evidence.
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January 24, 2025
Feds' Madigan Theory 'Doesn't Line Up,' His Atty Tells Jury
Counsel for former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan told an Illinois federal jury Friday that prosecutors attempting to convict him of racketeering have painted an "incomplete and misleading" picture of a crooked politician at trial, but have failed to meet their burden to prove he ever acted with corrupt intent or engaged in a "this for that" exchange for his official action.
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January 24, 2025
Gov't Says Ukrainian Duo Should Get 15 Years For $25M Fraud
Prosecutors have asked a Florida federal court to sentence two Ukrainian men to 15½ years in prison after they pled guilty to laundering money from a hotel staffing scheme that the U.S. government said cost it $25 million in taxes.
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January 24, 2025
Tech Co. Founder Gets 2.5 Years In $14M Payroll Tax Case
A New Hampshire federal judge sentenced the founder of a technology startup to two and a half years in prison for failing to pay more than $14 million in employment and personal taxes, granting a request from prosecutors who said incarceration was the only meaningful sentence.
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January 24, 2025
GOP Sens. Propose Permanent Pass-Through Break
The 2017 federal tax law's pass-through deduction would be made permanent under legislation co-signed by more than half of the Senate's Republicans.
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January 24, 2025
IRS Says Athlete NIL Charity-Work Collective Not Tax-Exempt
An organization that pays college athletes from an unidentified university for the of use their names, images and likenesses in exchange for their participation in charity and educational events is not tax-exempt, the Internal Revenue Service said Friday.
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January 24, 2025
Law Students Scramble As Federal Gov't Yanks Job Offers
Law students across the country are scrambling to figure out their next steps after a range of federal agencies yanked job and internship offers this week because of the new hiring freeze imposed by the Trump administration.
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January 24, 2025
House Bill Would Repeal Stock Buyback Tax
The excise tax on stock buybacks would be repealed under legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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January 24, 2025
Hunter Biden Pans IRS Agents' Appeal To Enter Privacy Suit
Hunter Biden urged the D.C. Circuit to affirm a ruling preventing the IRS agents he has accused of improperly revealing his tax return information from intervening in his privacy suit against the U.S. government, saying the court should reject their claims about the importance of their participation.
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January 24, 2025
Taxation With Representation: Latham, Simpson Thacher
In this week's Taxation With Representation, a Brookfield private real estate fund acquires Divvy Homes' property portfolio and platform, Kantar Group proposes the sale of Kantar Media, and an Ares Management-led group buys a majority of Form Technologies Inc.'s common equity.
Expert Analysis
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Litigation Inspiration: Attys Can Be Heroic Like Olympians
Although litigation won’t earn anyone an Olympic medal in Paris this summer, it can be worthy of the same lasting honor if attorneys exercise focused restraint — seeking both their clients’ interests and those of the court — instead of merely pursuing every advantage short of sanctionable conduct, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.
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Lean Into The 'Great Restoration' To Retain Legal Talent
As the “great resignation,” in which employees voluntarily left their jobs in droves, has largely dissipated, legal employers should now work toward the idea of a “great restoration,” adopting strategies to effectively hire, onboard and retain top legal talent, says Molly McGrath at Hiring & Empowering Solutions.
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How Cannabis Rescheduling May Alter Paraphernalia Imports
The Biden administration's recent proposal to loosen federal restrictions on marijuana use raises questions about how U.S. Customs and Border Protection enforcement policies may shift when it comes to enforcing a separate federal ban on marijuana accessory imports, says R. Kevin Williams at Clark Hill.
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NCAA Settlement May End The NIL Model As We Know It
The recent House v. NCAA settlement in California federal court, in which the NCAA agreed to allow schools to directly pay March Madness television revenue to their athletes, may send outside name, image and likeness collectives in-house, says Mike Ingersoll at Womble Bond.
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Fishing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Atop the list of ways fishing makes me a better lawyer is the relief it offers from the chronic stress of a demanding caseload, but it has also improved my listening skills and patience, and has served as an exceptional setting for building earnest relationships, says Steven DeGeorge at Robinson Bradshaw.
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A Healthier Legal Industry Starts With Emotional Intelligence
The legal profession has long been plagued by high rates of mental health issues, in part due to attorneys’ early training and broader societal stereotypes — but developing one’s emotional intelligence is one way to foster positive change, collectively and individually, says attorney Esperanza Franco.
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To Make Your Legal Writing Clear, Emulate A Master Chef
To deliver clear and effective written advocacy, lawyers should follow the model of a fine dining chef — seasoning a foundation of pure facts with punchy descriptors, spicing it up with analogies, refining the recipe and trimming the fat — thus catering to a sophisticated audience of decision-makers, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Circuit Judge Writes An Opinion, AI Helps: What Now?
Last week's Eleventh Circuit opinion in Snell v. United Specialty Insurance, notable for a concurrence outlining the use of artificial intelligence to evaluate a term's common meaning, is hopefully the first step toward developing a coherent basis for the judiciary's generative AI use, says David Zaslowsky at Baker McKenzie.
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BF Borgers Clients Should Review Compliance, Liability
After the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recently announced enforcement proceedings against audit firm BF Borgers for fabricating audit documentation for hundreds of public companies, those companies will need to follow special procedures for disclosure and reporting — and may need to prepare for litigation from the plaintiffs bar, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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Trauma-Informed Legal Approaches For Pro Bono Attorneys
As National Trauma Awareness Month ends, pro bono attorneys should nevertheless continue to acknowledge the mental and physical effects of trauma, allowing them to better represent clients, and protect themselves from compassion fatigue and burnout, say Katherine Cronin at Stinson and Katharine Manning at Blackbird.
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What Updated PLR Procedure May Mean For Stock Spin-Offs
A recently published Internal Revenue Service revenue procedure departs from commonly understood interpretations of the spinoff rules by imposing more stringent standards on companies seeking private letter rulings regarding tax-free stock spinoff and split-off transactions, and may presage regulatory changes that would have the force of law, say attorneys at Skadden.
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Proposed Cannabis Reschedule Sidesteps State Law Effects
The U.S. Department of Justice's recent proposal to move cannabis to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act provides certain benefits, but its failure to address how the rescheduling would interact with existing state cannabis laws disappointed industry participants hoping for clarity on this crucial question, says Ian Stewart at Wilson Elser.
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How Attys Can Avoid Pitfalls When Withdrawing From A Case
The Trump campaign's recent scuffle over its bid to replace its counsel in a pregnancy retaliation suit offers a chance to remind attorneys that many troubles inherent in withdrawing from a case can be mitigated or entirely avoided by communicating with clients openly and frequently, says Christopher Konneker at Orsinger Nelson.