Federal
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January 24, 2025
Tech Co. Founder Gets 2½ 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The excise tax on stock buybacks would be repealed under legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.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.
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January 24, 2025
Former Mass. Transit Facilities Engineer Admits $8.5M Fraud
A former facilities engineer for the private company that runs Massachusetts' commuter rail lines has pled guilty to defrauding his former employer of approximately $8.5 million through a pair of schemes and failing to report the funds on his income tax returns.
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January 24, 2025
Weekly Internal Revenue Bulletin
The Internal Revenue Service's weekly bulletin, issued Friday, included final regulations allowing an IRS supervisor to approve penalties anytime before the agency assess them as well as before it issues a preassessment notice subject to a U.S. Tax Court review, such as a deficiency notice.
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January 23, 2025
Madigan's Law Firm Profits Drove Corrupt Acts, Jury Told
Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's ownership interest in his Chicago law firm and his entitlement to 50% of its profits was behind his efforts to extort property tax business from developers who needed approvals from state and local government for their projects, prosecutors told an Illinois federal jury Thursday.
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January 23, 2025
Taiwan Double-Tax Relief Floated In Senate After House OK
The Senate Finance Committee introduced bipartisan legislation Thursday that would grant tax benefits to Taiwanese businesses in the U.S. and authorize the White House to negotiate a tax agreement with Taiwan, following the House of Representatives' approval of companion legislation.
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January 23, 2025
Tribe Member's Tax Debts Can Be Discharged, 10th Circ. Told
The Tenth Circuit should overturn a lower court's finding that a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation's tax debts did not qualify for a discharge from bankruptcy, he told the appeals court, saying the debts weren't based on his actual income.
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January 23, 2025
New Reg Hurts Taxpayer's Penalty Argument, US Tells 5th Cir.
Final regulations clarifying that an Internal Revenue Service supervisor can approve tax penalties at any time before the agency issues a deficiency notice undermines an appellant's arguments in a tax dispute, the U.S. government told the Fifth Circuit.
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January 23, 2025
Robocall Schemer's Estate Agrees To Pay $4.3M In Payroll Tax
Federal prosecutors and the estate of a telemarketing company owner asked a Michigan federal judge to approve a consent judgment ordering the estate to pay $4.3 million of the company's outstanding employment taxes.
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January 22, 2025
Madigan Used ComEd As 'Personal Piggy Bank,' Jurors Told
Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and his devoted surrogate Michael McClain conspired to enhance and preserve Madigan's power and line his pockets, both by steering business to the ex-speaker's law firm and rewarding his political allies with do-nothing jobs, prosecutors told an Illinois federal jury during closing arguments Wednesday.
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January 22, 2025
Seven Charged In $600 Million COVID Tax Credit Scheme
Seven people have been accused of trying to defraud the federal government of more than $600 million by filing more than 8,000 false tax returns in what the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday called "the nation's largest COVID-19 tax credit scheme."
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January 22, 2025
Renewing TCJA Will Deepen Economic Divide, Oxfam Says
Renewing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would cost the U.S. more than $4.5 trillion in revenue that could be used to reduce economic inequality, nongovernmental organization Oxfam said in the release of its annual report on inequality.
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January 22, 2025
Sheriff's Fund Withdrawal Not Embezzlement, Tax Court Says
A former county sheriff did not embezzle money from an account used to buy food for prisoners when she invested the funds in a business that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme, the U.S. Tax Court ruled Wednesday in a dispute over whether she owed taxes on the money.
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January 22, 2025
GOP Again Floats Reciprocal Taxes In Affront To Global Deal
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday renewed their proposal for reciprocal taxes against countries that participate in an international minimum tax agreement, following up on President Donald Trump's rejection of the global accord.
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January 22, 2025
Wyden Urges National Standard For Hemp Regulation
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., rallied on Wednesday for his bill that would beef up regulation of products with hemp-derived cannabinoids in order to protect consumers, particularly children.
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January 22, 2025
Foreclosed Property Owner's Claims Too Late, Tax Court Says
The U.S. Tax Court sustained more than $100,000 in tax liabilities Wednesday against the owner of foreclosed properties, saying she is not entitled to deductions for net operating losses and capital loss carry-forwards that she claimed late.
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January 22, 2025
Captive Insurance Co. Head Seeks Tax-Shelter Fine Refund
A tax attorney who heads a business that creates captive insurance companies said the IRS wrongly accused him of promoting an abusive tax shelter, telling an Ohio federal court the agency owes him a refund of penalties he handed over.
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January 21, 2025
Tax Court Slashes $33M Easement Deduction
The U.S. Tax Court reduced a partnership's claimed $33 million tax deduction for a donation of a Georgia conservation easement Tuesday, saying the easement was only worth $4.7 million, partly because the partnership overestimated its development potential in a rural area.
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January 21, 2025
IRS Office Can't Verify Low-Income Aid Meets Requirements
The Internal Revenue Service office in charge of a program that provides assistance to low-income people dealing with tax disputes can't access information that would allow it to make sure grant recipients meet requirements, potentially harming the program's effectiveness, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said Tuesday.
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January 21, 2025
Expat Facing $6.9M In FBAR Penalties, Interest
An American woman living in Switzerland faces $6.9 million in penalties, interest and late fees because she did not report her accounts that were held at a Swiss bank, the U.S. government told a D.C. federal court.
Corporate Transparency Law Remains Flanked By Threats
The Corporate Transparency Act is facing threats across the branches of government despite the U.S. Supreme Court pausing a nationwide injunction on it Thursday, with another universal injunction in place, other court battles underway and some Republican lawmakers targeting the law.
GOP, Dems From High-Tax States Push To Kill SALT Cap
Republican and Democratic lawmakers from high-tax states said Wednesday that raising or eliminating the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction would be essential to gaining their support for a bill to renew expiring Tax Cuts and Jobs Act tax breaks.
Tribal Tax Status Regs Leave Energy Credit Access Up In Air
While recently proposed regulations would provide long-awaited clarity that enterprises wholly owned by Native American tribes are exempt from federal taxes, the rules leave glaring questions open about whether tribes can access clean energy tax credits through business structures like joint ventures.
Corporate Transparency Law Remains Flanked By Threats
The Corporate Transparency Act is facing threats across the branches of government despite the U.S. Supreme Court pausing a nationwide injunction on it Thursday, with another universal injunction in place, other court battles underway and some Republican lawmakers targeting the law.
GOP, Dems From High-Tax States Push To Kill SALT Cap
Republican and Democratic lawmakers from high-tax states said Wednesday that raising or eliminating the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction would be essential to gaining their support for a bill to renew expiring Tax Cuts and Jobs Act tax breaks.
Tribal Tax Status Regs Leave Energy Credit Access Up In Air
While recently proposed regulations would provide long-awaited clarity that enterprises wholly owned by Native American tribes are exempt from federal taxes, the rules leave glaring questions open about whether tribes can access clean energy tax credits through business structures like joint ventures.
Featured Stories
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Tribal Tax Status Regs Leave Energy Credit Access Up In Air
While recently proposed regulations would provide long-awaited clarity that enterprises wholly owned by Native American tribes are exempt from federal taxes, the rules leave glaring questions open about whether tribes can access clean energy tax credits through business structures like joint ventures.
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US Guidance On Amount B Carries Potential For Disputes
Recent IRS guidance on a simplified and streamlined transfer pricing method for certain cross-border transactions, known as Amount B, suggests rulemakers want feedback on how it would work if it were made mandatory, but that approach could lead to controversy without global cooperation.
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Meet The Key Players In Tom Goldstein's Tax-Crimes Case
The tax-evasion indictment of U.S. Supreme Court expert lawyer and SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein features an eclectic cast of characters linked to his purported side career as a high-stakes poker player, including law firm partners, professional gamblers, a Texas billionaire, a movie producer and an actor.
Expert Analysis
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What's Next For Accounting Enforcement After SEC's Big 2024
The U.S. Securities and Exchange under the Trump administration will likely continue to focus enforcement efforts on many of the same accounting and auditing issues that it pursued over the past year — but other areas, such as ESG, internal controls and cryptocurrency cases, may fall out of focus, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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Mentorship Resolutions For The New Year
Attorneys tend to focus on personal achievements or career milestones when they set yearly goals, but one important area often gets overlooked in this process — mentoring relationships, which are some of the most effective tools for professional growth, say Kelly Galligan at Rutan & Tucker and Andra Greene at Phillips ADR.
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Coaching Little League Makes Me A Better Lawyer
While coaching poorly played Little League Baseball early in the morning doesn't sound like a good time, I love it — and the experience has taught me valuable lessons about imperfection, compassion and acceptance that have helped me grow as a person and as a lawyer, says Alex Barnett at DiCello Levitt.
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5 Litigation Funding Trends To Note In 2025
Lawyers and their clients must be prepared to navigate an evolving litigation funding market in 2025, made more complicated by a new administration and the increasing overall cost of litigation, says Jeffery Lula at GLS Capital.
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Rethinking Litigation Risk And What It Really Means To Win
Attorneys have a tendency to overestimate litigation risk before summary judgment and underestimate risk after it, but an eight-stage litigation framework can clarify risk at different points and help litigators reassess what true success looks like in any particular case, says Joshua Libling at Arcadia Finance.
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Small Biz Caught In Corporate Transparency Act Crossfire
Despite compliance being put on hold due to a nationwide preliminary injunction, small businesses have been caught in the middle of the legal battle over the Corporate Transparency Act — and confusion over the law's requirements could result in major penalties, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.
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No, Litigation Funders Are Not 'Fleeing' The District Of Del.
A recent study claimed that litigation funders have “fled” Delaware federal court due to a standing order requiring disclosure of third-party financing, but responsible funders have no problem litigating in this jurisdiction, and many other factors could explain the decline in filings, say Will Freeman and Sarah Tsou at Omni Bridgeway.
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Hydrogen Regs Will Provide More Certainty — If They Survive
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Newly finalized regulations implementing the Section 45V clean hydrogen tax credit allow producers more flexibility, and should therefore help put the industry on more solid footing — but the incoming Trump administration and Republican Congress will have multiple options for overturning or altering the regulations, say attorneys at Steptoe.
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5 E-Discovery Predictions For 2025 And Beyond
In the year to come, e-discovery will be shaped by new and emerging trends, from the adoption of artificial intelligence provisions in protective orders, to the proliferation of emojis as a source of evidence in contemporary litigation, say attorneys at Littler.
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What's Ahead As Transparency Act Comes To A Crossroads
Synthesizing the contrasting federal district and appellate court rulings on the Corporate Transparency Act’s validity reveals several main areas of debate that will likely remain at issue as challenges to the law continue winding through the courts, say attorneys at Farella Braun.
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Final Hydrogen Tax Credit Regs Add Flexibility For Producers
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The recently released final regulations implementing the Inflation Reduction Act's clean hydrogen production tax credit offer taxpayers greater flexibility, reducing risk and creating more certainty for investments in the industry, thus diminishing — but not eliminating — the risk of legal challenges to the regulations, say attorneys at Steptoe.
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5 Evolving Concerns For Family Offices In 2025
Complex regulatory changes and emerging operational risks will force family offices to stay on their toes in 2025, with timely action particularly necessary to address several tax and reporting developments that may affect their investments and business operations, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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7 Ways 2nd Trump Administration May Affect Partner Hiring
President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House will likely have a number of downstream effects on partner hiring in the legal industry, from accelerated hiring timelines to increased vetting of prospective employees, say recruiters at Macrae.