Federal

  • June 17, 2024

    Marathon Ineligible For $247M Fuel Tax Refund, IRS Says

    Energy giant Marathon Petroleum isn't entitled to $247 million in tax refunds for its alternative fuel mixtures because its eligibility for the credits hadn't yet been approved by the Internal Revenue Service when it made the refund request, the agency told an Ohio federal court.

  • June 14, 2024

    Ga. CPA Admits To Role In $1.3B Tax Fraud Scheme

    After a federal jury convicted two of his co-conspirators in a landmark conservation easement tax shelter trial last year, a Georgia accountant who'd previously denied culpability elected to change course Friday and plead guilty to two felony charges.

  • June 14, 2024

    5th Circ. Says Jury Instructions Deeply 'Flawed' In Tax Suit

    A Fifth Circuit panel has found that the jury instructions for a $580,000 tax dispute were "irredeemably flawed," vacating the verdict and handing a loss to a partnership that claimed it had reasonable cause for its tax filing problems due to an employee's mental health issues.

  • June 14, 2024

    US Urges 5th Circ. To Back $2M Tax Bill For Tire Imports

    The Fifth Circuit should overturn a lower court's ruling that a Houston truck company was not an importer responsible for nearly $2 million in excise taxes on tires it bought from a Chinese manufacturer, the U.S. told the Fifth Circuit on Friday.

  • June 14, 2024

    Eaton Says Court Improperly Required Int'l Employee Evals

    An Ohio federal court should reconsider its decision that multinational power management company Eaton must disclose the personnel records of its foreign employees that were requested by the Internal Revenue Service in a transfer pricing investigation, the company told the court.

  • June 14, 2024

    The Tax Angle: More GOP TCJA Teams, Nonprofit Hospitals

    From a look at efforts by the Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee to prepare for next year's expiration of the 2017 tax overhaul law to a new call for nonprofit hospitals to provide more charity care, here's a peek into a reporter's notebook on a few of the week's developing tax stories.

  • June 14, 2024

    IRS Says Ariz. Lacks Standing To Fight Taxation Of Rebates

    Arizona did not have standing to lodge its claim that its 2023 income tax rebates should be exempt from federal tax, the Internal Revenue Service told a federal court, arguing the taxes paid by Arizonans did not amount to harm to the state itself.

  • June 14, 2024

    Tax Preparer Blames Customers For Errors In $42.5M Dispute

    A tax preparer who once worked for the IRS said the government wrongly accused him of underestimating clients' tax liabilities, telling a Washington federal court in response to allegations that he caused $42.5 million in tax losses that his customers had made the errors.

  • June 14, 2024

    Taxation With Representation: Kirkland, Arnold & Porter

    In this week's Taxation with Representation, Noble Corp. PLC buys Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., Cognizant buys Belcan, AlphaSense raises funding to buy Tegus, and Matador Resources Co. acquires a subsidiary of the EnCap Investments portfolio company Ameredev II Parent.

  • June 14, 2024

    House Panel Approves Slashing $2B From IRS Budget

    The House Appropriations Committee approved legislation that would reduce Internal Revenue Service funding for fiscal 2025 by more than $2 billion and prohibit money from going to the agency's free online tax-filing program without congressional approval, sending it to the full House for consideration.

  • June 14, 2024

    ABA Tax Section Calls For Revision To Stock Buyback Regs

    The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the IRS should narrow a rule in proposed regulations on the stock buyback tax regarding U.S. subsidiaries funding repurchases of their foreign parents' stock, the American Bar Association's Tax Section said in a letter released Friday.

  • June 14, 2024

    Weekly Internal Revenue Bulletin

    The Internal Revenue Service's weekly bulletin, issued Friday, included delays for reporting certain intercompany payments that are exempt from the base erosion and anti-abuse tax.

  • June 14, 2024

    Full DC Circ. Won't Hear Foreign Disclosure Penalty Dispute

    The D.C. Circuit declined to reconsider its ruling overturning a major U.S. Tax Court decision that had crimped the administrative collection arm of the Internal Revenue Service, letting stand a panel's restoration of the agency's power to more freely penalize undisclosed foreign corporations.

  • June 13, 2024

    Senate Finance Panel OKs 3 Tax Court Judges, Treasury IG

    The Senate Finance Committee overwhelmingly approved Thursday the nominations of three judges for the U.S. Tax Court and a new inspector general for the U.S. Department of the Treasury, a post that has lacked a Senate-confirmed nominee for five years.

  • June 13, 2024

    Staffing Hurdles Could Slow Impact Of IRS Audit Boost

    The Internal Revenue Service's intended ramping up of enforcement on wealthy people, large corporations and complex partnerships may not have a meaningful impact in the short term because of challenges in hiring and training people to do the work.

  • June 13, 2024

    Easement Deduction Limit Hurts Conservation, 11th Circ. Told

    A partnership's tax deduction for its donation of a conservation easement should not be limited to its adjusted basis in the property, the partnership told the Eleventh Circuit in urging it to overturn a U.S. Tax Court decision that it claims will hurt conservation efforts.

  • June 13, 2024

    A Chronology Of The Hunter Biden Investigation

    The story behind President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden's conviction on federal gun charges started with a gun purchase in 2018, was complicated by a laptop repair in 2019, and could bleed into an upcoming trial on federal tax charges in California in September.

  • June 13, 2024

    Mo. City Tax Credit Suit Tossed Over Federal Jurisdiction

    A federal judge dismissed a Kansas City, Missouri, resident's claims that the city unconstitutionally refused to credit his state income taxes paid to Kansas against his city earnings tax liabilities, ruling that a federal law barred the case from being lodged in federal court.

  • June 13, 2024

    IRS Extends Corp. AMT Penalty Relief Into August

    The Internal Revenue Service will continue to provide penalty relief for entities that fail to make estimated quarterly payments of the corporate alternative minimum tax through Aug. 15, the agency said Thursday.

  • June 12, 2024

    Senate Budget Chair Seeks End To Carried Interest Tax Break

    Lawmakers should end the favorable tax treatment of income from carried interest compared with ordinary earned income, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse said Wednesday.

  • June 12, 2024

    Digital Taxes May Take Hold Regardless Of Treaty Signing

    An internationally agreed-upon freeze on digital levies may continue to thaw even if countries meet their impending deadline to sign a related treaty for new corporate tax rules, in part because the accord faces a hazy path to formal ratification.

  • June 12, 2024

    Feds Strike Deal Ending $7M FBAR Penalty Cases

    The U.S. government agreed to settle a pair of foreign bank account reporting cases in which it had sought a total of $7 million from a former insurance broker and his wife's estate, according to a court order filed Wednesday in California federal court.

  • June 12, 2024

    Groups Push Back On Stock Buyback Tax Test's Scope

    The U.S. Treasury Department's proposed stock buyback tax rules go too far in trying to assess whether the main purpose of a U.S. subsidiary's funding purchase of its foreign parent's stock is to avoid the tax, two groups said in comments released Wednesday.

  • June 12, 2024

    St. Louis Atty Urges Acquittal After Tax Avoidance Conviction

    A Missouri attorney who was found guilty of participating in a $4 million tax avoidance scheme alongside her father and a North Carolina insurance agent is looking to wipe out the verdict, arguing there wasn't enough evidence to convict.

  • June 12, 2024

    IRS Nix Of $45M Easement Deduction Invalid, Donor Says

    A North Carolina partnership asked the U.S. Tax Court to invalidate an Internal Revenue Service adjustment that slashed its $45.6 million deduction for its donation of a conservation easement, saying the agency failed to follow proper administrative procedures.

Expert Analysis

  • Proposed Hydrogen Tax Credit Regs May Be Legally Flawed

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    While the recently proposed regulations for the new clean hydrogen production tax credit have been lauded by some in the environmental community, it is unclear whether they are sufficiently grounded in law, result from valid rulemaking processes, or accord with other administrative law principles, say Hunter Johnston and Steven Dixon at Steptoe.

  • Navigating ACA Reporting Nuances As Deadlines Loom

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    Stephanie Lowe at Liebert Cassidy walks employers through need-to-know elements of Affordable Care Act reporting, including two quickly approaching deadlines, the updated affordability threshold, strategies for choosing an affordability safe harbor, and common coding pitfalls.

  • 6 Pointers For Attys To Build Trust, Credibility On Social Media

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    In an era of information overload, attorneys can use social media strategically — from making infographics to leveraging targeted advertising — to cut through the noise and establish a reputation among current and potential clients, says Marly Broudie at SocialEyes Communications.

  • Why Biz Groups Disagree On Ending Chevron Deference

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    Two amicus briefs filed in advance of last month's U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo highlight contrasting views on whether the doctrine of Chevron deference promotes or undermines the stable regulatory environment that businesses require, say Wyatt Kendall and Sydney Brogden at Morris Manning.

  • US-Chile Tax Treaty May Encourage Cross-Border Investment

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    Provisions in the recently effective U.S.-Chile bilateral income tax treaty should encourage business between the two countries, as they reduce U.S. withholding tax on investment income for Chilean taxpayers, exempt certain U.S. taxpayers from Chilean capital gains tax, and clarify U.S. foreign tax credit rules, say attorneys at Kramer Levin.

  • A Look Ahead For The Electric Vehicle Charging Industry

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    This will likely be an eventful year for the electric vehicle market as government efforts to accelerate their adoption inevitably clash with backlash from supporters of the petroleum industry, say Rue Phillips at SkillFusion and Enid Joffe at Green Paradigm Consulting.

  • A Post-Mortem Analysis Of Stroock's Demise

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    After the dissolution of 147-year-old firm Stroock late last year shook up the legal world, a post-mortem analysis of the data reveals a long list of warning signs preceding the firm’s collapse — and provides some insight into how other firms might avoid the same disastrous fate, says Craig Savitzky at Leopard Solutions.

  • SG's Office Is Case Study To Help Close Legal Gender Gap

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    As women continue to be underrepresented in the upper echelons of the legal profession, law firms could learn from the example set by the Office of the Solicitor General, where culture and workplace policies have helped foster greater gender equality, say attorneys at Ocean Tomo.

  • Planning A Defense As IRS Kicks Off Sports Losses Campaign

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    Sports team owners and partnerships face potential examination under the Internal Revenue Service’s recently announced sports industry losses campaign, and should be preparing to explain what drove their reported losses and assembling documentation to support their tax return positions and accounting methods, say Sheri Dillon and Jennifer Breen at Morgan Lewis.

  • What New Calif. Strike Force Means For White Collar Crimes

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    The recently announced Central District of California strike force targeting complex corporate and securities fraud — following the Northern District of California's model — combines experienced prosecutorial leadership and partnerships with federal agencies like the IRS and FBI, and could result in an uptick in the number of cases and speed of proceedings, say attorneys at MoFo.

  • Reimagining Law Firm Culture To Break The Cycle Of Burnout

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    While attorney burnout remains a perennial issue in the legal profession, shifting post-pandemic expectations mean that law firms must adapt their office cultures to retain talent, say Kevin Henderson and Eric Pacifici at SMB Law Group.

  • The Legal Industry Needs A Cybersecurity Paradigm Shift

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    As law firms face ever-increasing risks of cyberattacks and ransomware incidents, the legal industry must implement robust cybersecurity measures and privacy-centric practices to preserve attorney-client privilege, safeguard client trust and uphold the profession’s integrity, says Ryan Paterson at Unplugged.

  • As Promised, IRS Is Coming For Crypto Tax Evaders

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    The IRS is fulfilling its promise to crack down on those who have neglected to pay taxes on cryptocurrency earnings, as demonstrated by recently imposed prison sentences, enforcement initiatives and meetings with international counterparts — suggesting a few key takeaways for taxpayer compliance, say attorneys at BakerHostetler.

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