Federal
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October 28, 2024
US Expatriations Tick Up In 3rd Quarter, IRS Says
The number of people who expatriated from the U.S. rose during the third quarter of the year compared with the previous quarter, the Internal Revenue Service said Monday.
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October 25, 2024
Crypto Rapidly Transforming IRS Criminal Cases, Agent Says
Cryptocurrency is altering the size of many criminal cases that federal law enforcement agencies are handling, an Internal Revenue Service criminal investigator told the UCLA Tax Controversy Conference, commenting that over the past three years the agency broke its record for asset seizures three times.
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October 25, 2024
9th Circ. Backs 7-Year Sentence Over Chip Exports To China
The Ninth Circuit on Friday upheld the seven-year prison sentence imposed on a former University of California, Los Angeles, electrical engineering professor convicted of illegally exporting high-powered semiconductor chips to China, saying the district court did not err in holding that the conduct amounted to an evasion of national security controls.
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October 25, 2024
'Magician' Tax Preparer Close To Plea Deal In $100M Case
A New York City-based tax preparer who earned the nickname "the magician," allegedly making $15 million while fraudulently depriving the IRS of $100 million, is in "fruitful" plea talks with prosecutors, a Manhattan federal judge heard Friday.
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October 25, 2024
IRS Delays Deadlines For Victims Of Alaska City Flooding
Taxpayers in the city and borough of Juneau, Alaska, will have until May 1 to file individual and business tax returns and make payments after the area was hit by flooding, the Internal Revenue Service said Friday.
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October 25, 2024
IRS Agents To Appeal Exclusion From Biden Tax Privacy Case
The IRS agents accused of improperly revealing Hunter Biden's tax return information in his privacy lawsuit against the U.S. government told a D.C. federal court Friday that they're planning to challenge a decision preventing them from personally intervening in the case.
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October 25, 2024
Taxation With Representation: Davis Polk, Skadden, Kirkland
In this week's Taxation With Representation, Atlantic Union Bankshares Corp. absorbs Sandy Spring Bancorp, Sophos and Secureworks merge, Wendel Group takes a stake in Monroe Capital LLC, and Acuity Brands Inc. buys QSC LLC.
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October 25, 2024
IRS Failed To Prevent $47M In Fraud Despite Alert, TIGTA Says
The Internal Revenue Service failed to detect more than 570 false tax returns that claimed over $47 million in fraudulent refunds despite having been previously alerted to the scheme used to file them, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Adminsitration said Friday.
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October 25, 2024
Virgin Islands Looks To Recoup Ocwen's $8.6M Tax Refund
The U.S. Virgin Islands' revenue bureau mistakenly paid an $8.6 million tax refund to mortgage company Ocwen based on a 90% economic development credit that shouldn't have been allowed, the islands' government told a federal court as it seeks to take back the money.
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October 25, 2024
Weekly Internal Revenue Bulletin
The Internal Revenue Service's weekly bulletin, issued Friday, included final rules that ended an income inclusion associated with intangibles for companies in some cases when transferring intellectual property from abroad back to the U.S.
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October 25, 2024
MVP: Wachtell's Tijana J. Dvornic
Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz's Tijana J. Dvornic led the firm's tax team in representing Lumen Technologies in the largest liability management transaction outside of bankruptcy protections, including addressing over $15 billion of existing debt, earning her a spot as one of the 2024 Law360 Tax MVPs.
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October 24, 2024
IRS To End Automatic Foreign Gift Reporting Penalty
Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Danny Werfel told the UCLA Tax Controversy Conference audience on Thursday that the agency will no longer automatically assess penalties for the late reporting of large foreign gifts, with the announcement eliciting applause from the audience of several hundred tax attorneys and tax professionals.
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October 24, 2024
Couple Owes Tax, Frivolous Arguments Penalty, 9th Circ. Says
The U.S. Tax Court correctly found that a Washington couple who repeatedly filed frivolous returns and claimed their wages are tax-free owe about $9,000 in taxes for 2017 and 2018, the Ninth Circuit said Thursday.
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October 24, 2024
Tax Court Affirms Rejection Of $94K In Deduction Claims
The Internal Revenue Service correctly disallowed a couple's nearly $94,000 in claimed individual and business deductions, the U.S. Tax Court said Thursday, while also finding them liable for nearly $11,000 in accuracy-related penalties.
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October 24, 2024
IRS Forming Transfer Pricing Team To Aid Real-Time Audits
The Internal Revenue Service is establishing a dedicated team to tackle transfer pricing issues that arise in real-time audits of companies participating in its compliance assurance process program, which should allow those issues to be handled more efficiently, an agency official said Thursday.
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October 24, 2024
Tax Court Nixes IRS Agent's $126K In Deductions
An Internal Revenue Service agent is not entitled to $126,000 in deductions for supposed medical expenses and charitable donations, the U.S. Tax Court ruled Thursday, saying the worker couldn't prove the payments were actually made.
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October 24, 2024
Wyden's Pharma Probe Could Build Case For Int'l Tax Reforms
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden's investigation into the tax planning of major U.S. pharmaceutical companies could help fuel an effort to revamp U.S. international tax laws next year when Congress addresses expiring provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
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October 24, 2024
Defunct Yoga Biz Co-Owner Cops To Tax-Dodging Conspiracy
A Seattle-area computer programmer who co-owned the defunct Yoga to the People business told a Manhattan federal judge on Thursday that he schemed to short the IRS on over $4 million of income, copping to a tax fraud conspiracy count.
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October 24, 2024
IRS Proposes Rules To Calculate Efficient Home Energy Credit
The Internal Revenue Service proposed rules Thursday for calculating a homeowner tax credit for improving energy efficiency and released guidance for manufacturers of improvement products that have complained about a government registration system set to take effect next year.
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October 24, 2024
Ex-Moody's GC Gets Prison For Tax-Filing Fail On $54M In Pay
The former general counsel for Moody's Corp. was sentenced Thursday to eight months in prison for willfully failing to file federal income tax returns for four years in which he collected $54 million in income.
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October 24, 2024
MVP: Sidley Austin's Rachel D. Kleinberg
Rachel D. Kleinberg, a co-leader of the global tax practice at Sidley Austin LLP, headed up a tax team to represent investors in a consortium that led to the $6.05 billion sale of the NFL's Washington Commanders, earning her a spot as one of the 2024 Law360 Tax MVPs.
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October 24, 2024
IRS Schedules November Advisory Council Meeting
The Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council will hold its next meeting Nov. 20, the agency announced Thursday.
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October 24, 2024
Mining Eligible In Final Regs For Energy Manufacturing Credit
The U.S. Treasury Department's final rules released Thursday on a valuable tax credit for manufacturing key components and materials used in clean energy technologies allow producers to take into account the costs to mine and extract critical minerals.
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October 23, 2024
IRS To Split Pass-Through, Energy Credit Work Into 2 Units
The IRS is planning to split up its Pass-Throughs and Special Industries office into two separate divisions, including one that will focus in part on energy credits enacted under the 2022 landmark climate law, an agency official said Wednesday.
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October 23, 2024
Tax Court Says Trucker Can't Deduct Reimbursed Expenses
The Internal Revenue Service correctly disallowed a Georgia truck driver's unreimbursed business expense deduction claims, because he was in fact reimbursed for the various expenses, the U.S. Tax Court said Wednesday.
Expert Analysis
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Pop Culture Docket: Justice Lebovits On Gilbert And Sullivan
Characters in the 19th century comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan break the rules of good lawyering by shamelessly throwing responsible critical thought to the wind, providing hilarious lessons for lawyers and judges on how to avoid a surfeit of traps and tribulations, say acting New York Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits and law student Tara Scown.
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State Of The States' AI Legal Ethics Landscape
Over the past year, several state bar associations, as well as the American Bar Association, have released guidance on the ethical use of artificial intelligence in legal practice, all of which share overarching themes and some nuanced differences, say Eric Pacifici and Kevin Henderson at SMB Law Group.
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8 Childhood Lessons That Can Help You Be A Better Attorney
A new school year is underway, marking a fitting time for attorneys to reflect on some fundamental life lessons from early childhood that offer a framework for problems that no legal textbook can solve, say Chris Gismondi and Chris Campbell at DLA Piper.
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How The 2025 Tax Policy Debate Will Affect The Energy Sector
Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming U.S. election, 2025 will bring a major tax policy debate that could affect the energy sector more than any other part of the economy — so stakeholders who could be affected should be engaging now to make sure they understand the stakes, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.
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This Election, We Need To Talk About Court Process
In recent decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has markedly transformed judicial processes — from summary judgment standards to notice pleadings — which has, in turn, affected individuals’ substantive rights, and we need to consider how the upcoming presidential election may continue this pattern, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys
Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.
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The Trade And Tax Issues Behind US-Canada Digital Tax Clash
The new Canadian digital services tax recently went into effect despite objections from the U.S., a controversy that represents an unusual mix of trade and tax policy, and many companies have been pondering how it will affect their e-commerce businesses, says Damon Pike at BDO.
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Litigation Inspiration: Honoring Your Learned Profession
About 30,000 people who took the bar exam in July will learn they passed this fall, marking a fitting time for all attorneys to remember that they are members in a specialty club of learned professionals — and the more they can keep this in mind, the more benefits they will see, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.
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AI May Limit Key Learning Opportunities For Young Attorneys
The thing that’s so powerful about artificial intelligence is also what’s most scary about it — its ability to detect patterns may curtail young attorneys’ chance to practice the lower-level work of managing cases, preventing them from ever honing the pattern recognition skills that undergird creative lawyering, says Sarah Murray at Trialcraft.
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A Look At How De Minimis Import Rules May Soon Change
The planned implementation of executive actions focused on the de minimis rule as it applies to shipments means companies should use this interval to evaluate the potential applicability and impact of Section 301, Section 201 or Section 232 duties on their products, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
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Ruling On Foreign Dividend Break Offers 2 Tax Court Insights
In Varian v. Commissioner, the U.S. Tax Court allowed a taxpayer's deduction for dividends from foreign subsidiaries, providing clarity on how the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright decision may affect challenges to Treasury regulations, and revealing a potential disallowance of foreign tax credits, say attorneys at Davis Polk.
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Why Now Is The Time For Law Firms To Hire Lateral Partners
Partner and associate mobility data from the second quarter of this year suggest that there's never been a better time in recent years for law firms to hire lateral candidates, particularly experienced partners — though this necessitates an understanding of potential red flags, say Julie Henson and Greg Hamman at Decipher Investigative Intelligence.
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Considering Possible PR Risks Of Certain Legal Tactics
Disney and American Airlines recently abandoned certain litigation tactics in two lawsuits after fierce public backlash, illustrating why corporate counsel should consider the reputational implications of any legal strategy and partner with their communications teams to preempt public relations concerns, says Chris Gidez at G7 Reputation Advisory.