Tax Lawyer's Blog

I hope you’re paying attention Mr. Laskey.
John Pacenti of Law.com reports:
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, with retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor writing for a three-judge panel, upheld a district court order that the IRS was not entitled to shut down [Abelardo Ernest] Cruz’s tax preparation company, Nations Business Center, nor [...]

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According to Sam Young of Tax Analysts several tax professionals have expressed concern over the Tax Court’s recent decision in Canal Corporation v. Commissioner:Â
In an e-mail to Tax Analysts, Blake D. Rubin, Andrea M. Whiteway, and Jon Finkelstein of McDermott Will & Emery LLP argued that the court misconstrued section 6662 in upholding the accuracy-related penalty [...]

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In Canal Corp. v. Commissioner, 135 T.C. No. 9 (Aug. 5, 2010), the Tax Court found a corporation liable for a $37 million accuracy-related penalty under §6662(a) even though it had obtained a tax opinion from Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC).
Judge Diane Kroupa issued a scathing rebuke of PWC which should be viewed as a shot across the bow of all [...]

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Everyone knows about the sweetheart deal the IRS gave it’s current boss, Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner.
Before he became Secretary of Treasury, Geithner, a financial wunderkind, failed to comply with federal tax laws and was assessed additional taxes, interest and penalties. Geithner was later relieved of the penalties based, at least in part, on his contention that his tax [...]

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The Internal Revenue Code does not contain a time period in which taxpayers must claim innocent spouse relief. However, Treasury Regulations require that taxpayers claiming innocent spouse relief make their claims within 2 years of the IRS’s commencement of collection action.Â
From Paul Caron:
The Seventh Circuit today, in a unanimous opinion written by Judge Posner, reversed a divided (11-5) Tax [...]

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It’s a crazy world we live in.
Denise Lavoie of the Associated Press writes that the Tax Court has ruled that the costs of a sex change operation are tax deductible:
The U.S. Tax Court ruled yesterday that a Massachusetts woman should be allowed to deduct the costs of her sex-change operation, a decision that could have [...]

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Fellow tax blogger Mary O’Keeffe of Bed Buffaloes in Your Tax Code left this question in a comment to my post titled Do You Need a Lawyer?:

Peter, there’s been a lot of press coverage of this case, but none that I’ve seen discusses the fact that the Tax Court opinion for Ms. Singleton-Clark’s case prominently states:
PURSUANT [...]

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Jane Genova of Law and More wonders whether tax lawyers are becoming obsolete (emphasis added):
Lori Singleton-Clarke, a Maryland nurse, took on IRS lawyers and won. What she won was the right to deduct nearly $15,000 tuition for her own MBA and for other professionals to do the same for their business degrees.
As Laura Saunders reports in [...]

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WebCPA reports that Joe Francis of “Girls Gone Wild” fame has filed a lawsuit against the IRS for illegal collection activities (emphasis added):
[S]hortly after the judge accepted his plea deal, the IRS filed a lien for $33,819,087.14 for three years of back taxes, from 2001 to 2003 (see IRS Files $34M Lien Against ‘Girls Gone Wild’ [...]

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Although federal bankruptcy laws supersede state laws, states are allowed to choose whether to apply their own asset exemptions or the federal exemptions. Florida, like most states, opts out of the federal system in favor of it’s own system.
The Bankruptcy Court had ruled that a Florida debtor’s vested interest in her corporation’s Keogh plan was not an exempt asset [...]

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