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Summary Opinions for November

Posted on Dec. 22, 2015

1973_GMC_MotorhomeHere is a summary of some of the other tax procedure items we didn’t otherwise cover in November.  This is heavy on tax procedure intersecting with doctors (including one using his RV to assist his practice).  Also, important updates on the AICPA case, US v. Rozbruch, and the DOJ focusing on employment withholding issues.

I’ve got a bunch of Jack Townsend love to start SumOp.  He covered a bunch of great tax procedure items last month.  No reason for me to do an inferior write up, when I can just link him.  First is his coverage of the Dr. Bradner conviction for wire fraud and tax evasion found on Jack’s Federal Tax Crime’s blog.  Why is this case interesting?  Because it seems like this Doc turned his divorce into some serious tax crimes, hiding millions offshore.  He then tried to bring the money back to the US, but someone in the offshore jurisdiction had flipped on him, and Homeland Security seized the funds ($4.6MM – I should have become a plastic surgeon!).  His ex is probably ecstatic that the Feds were able to track down some marital assets.   I am sure that will help keep her in the standard of living she has become accustom to.

  • I know I’ve said this before, but you should really follow Jack Townsend’s blogs.  From his Federal Tax Procedure Blog, a write up of the Second Circuit affirming the district court in United States v. Rozbruch.  Frank Agostino previously wrote up the district court case for us with his associates Brian Burton and Lawrence Sannicandro.  That post, entitled, Procedural Challenges to Penalties: Section 6751(b)(1)’s Signed Supervisory Approval Requirement can be found here.  Those gents are pretty knowledgeable about this topic, as they are the lawyers for the taxpayer. As Jack explains, the Second Circuit introduces a new phrase, “functional satisfaction” (sort of like substantial compliance) as a way to find for the IRS in a case considering the application of Section 6751(b) to the trust fund recovery penalty.
  • The Tax Court in Trumbly v. Comm’r has held that sanctions could not be imposed against the Service under Section 6673(a)(2) where the settlement officer incorrectly declared the administrative record consisted of 88 exhibits that were supposed to be attached to the declaration but were not actually attached.  The Chief Counsel lawyer failed to realize the issue, and forwarded other documents, claiming it was the record.  The Court held that the Chief Counsel lawyer failed to review the documents closely, and did not intentionally forward incorrect documents.  The Court did not believe the actions raised to the level of bad faith (majority position), recklessness or another lesser degree of culpability (minority position).  Not a bad result from failing to review your file!
  • This isn’t that procedure related, but I found the case interesting, and I’ve renamed the Tax Court case Cartwright v. Comm’r as “Breaking Bones”.  Dr. Cartwright, a surgeon, used a mobile home as his “mobile office” parked in the hospital parking lot.  He didn’t treat people in his mobile home (which is good, because that could seem somewhat creepy), but he did paperwork and research while in the RV.  Cartwright attempted to deduct expenses related to the RV, including depreciation.  The Court found that the deductions were allowable, but only up to the percentages calculated by the Service for business use verse personal use.  I’m definitely buying an Airstream and taking Procedurally Taxing on the road (after we find a way to monetize this).
  • The IRS thinks you should pick your tax return preparer carefully (because it and Congress have created a monstrosity of Code and Regs, and it is pretty easy for preparers to steal from you).
  • Les wrote about AICPA defending CPA turf in September.  In the post, he discussed the actions the AICPA has been taking, including the oral argument in its case challenging the voluntary education and testing regime.  As Les stated:

The issue on appeal revolves whether the AICPA has standing to challenge the plan in court rather than the merits of the suit. The panel and AICPA’s focus was on so-called competitive standing, which essentially gives a hook for litigants to challenge an action in court if the litigant can show an imminent or actual increase in competition as a result of the regulation.

On October 30th, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed the lower court, and held that the AICPA had standing to challenge the IRS’s Annual Filing Season Program, where the IRS created a voluntary program to somewhat regulate unenrolled return preparers.  The Court found the AICPA had “competitive standing”, which Les highlighted in his post as the argument the Court seemed to latch on to.   For more info on this topic, those of you with Tax Notes subscriptions can look to the November 2nd article, “AICPA Has Standing to Challenge IRS Return Preparer Program”.  Les was quoted in the post, discussing the underlying reasons for the challenge.

  • Service issued CCA 201545017 which deals with a fairly technical timely (e)mailing is timely (e)filing issue with an amended return for a corporation that was rejected from electronic filing and the corporation subsequently paper filed.  The corporation was required to efile the amended return pursuant to Treas. Reg. 301.6011-5(d)(4). Notice 2010-13 outlines the procedure for what should occur if a return is rejected for efiling to ensure timely mailing/timely filing, and requires contacting the Service, obtaining assistance, and then eventually obtaining a waiver from efiling.  There is a ten day window for this to occur.  The corporation may have skipped some of the required steps and just paper filed.  The Service found this was timely filing, and skipping the steps in the notice was not fatal.  The Service did note, however, that efiling for the year in question was no longer available, so the intermediate steps were futile.  A paper return would have been required.  It isn’t clear if the Service would have come to the same conclusion if efiling was possible.
  • Sticking with CCAs, in November the IRS also released CCA 201545016 dealing with when the IRS could reassess abated assessment on a valid return where the taxpayer later pled guilty to filing false claims.   The CCA is long, and has a fairly in depth tax pattern discussed, covering whether various returns were valid (some were not because the jurat was crossed out), and whether income was excessive when potentially overstated, and therefore abatable.  For the valid returns, where income was overstated, the Service could abate under Section 6404, but the CCA warned that the Service could not reassess unless the limitations period was still open, so abatement should be carefully considered.
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