We welcome back Monte Jackel, Of Counsel at Leo Berwick. Since 2010, Schedule UTP has been used by certain corporations to report uncertain tax positions. In today’s post Monte discusses whether the BBA centralized audit partnership regime supports mandating Schedule UTP for partnerships. Monte discusses the history why partnerships were not originally required to furnish the form, as well as whether BBA subjects partnerships to additional financial reporting, and the current AICPA position on the latter issue. Les
For over a decade now, Schedule UTP has been mandated for corporations with $10 Million or more in assets and who maintain an audited financial statement and has one or more disclosable tax positions. See Schedule UTP Instructions. When initially issued a decade or so ago, the IRS indicated that similar reporting may be required of partnerships in the future. However, corporations with the requisite assets and financial statements who were partners in a partnership from which the return position arose were required to disclose that partnership position on the schedule as originally issued.
About a year or so later, it was reported that IRS Chief Counsel Wilkins had decided not to extend the schedule reporting to partnerships (See Jeremiah Coder, IRS Not Considering UTP Reporting for Passthroughs, Wilkins Says, 41 Ins. Tax Rev. 16, July 1, 2011, Wilkins Tax Notes Story) because, as the story quotes the former Chief Counsel, “the UTP reporting process relies heavily on the reporting that financial accounting rules already require of entities, Wilkins said. Thus, unless the accounting literature changes, the UTP reporting technique really doesn’t address positions that might exist in passthroughs, he said….For now the UTP reporting approach ‘does not fit that well with passthroughs as the accounting practices exist today,’ IRS Chief Counsel William J. Wilkins said.”
ASC 740 applies only to business entities subject to income taxes. (See Alistair M. Nevius, Journal of Accountancy, June 1, 2011, ASC 740 excerpt.) If that is the case, then those entities would be subject to the financial accounting rules and maintain a financial statement.
When the centralized audit partnership regime came into being in 2015, the question became whether partnerships subject to these new audit rules would now be subject to ASC 740 because the default position for partnerships subject to these new audit rules was that the partnership would pay an imputed underpayment (section 6225). This could then make those partnerships subject to federal income tax and subject to the accounting rules, and then perhaps the rationale for not subjecting partnerships to schedule UTP would no longer exist. Partnership reporting on Schedule UTP would presumably then help the selection of partnership tax returns for audit by the IRS, which has been one of their stated public goals.
The potential impact of the centralized partnership audit regime on financial accounting was addressed by the AICPA in March 2018 (See AICPA Technical Practice Aids, TIS section 7200.09). In the case of partnerships subject to this centralized audit system, the question presented was whether the imputed underpayment that could be paid by the partnership was a federal tax imposed on the partnership directly in its taxpayer capacity or, alternatively, whether the tax underpayment is being made on behalf of the partners. If the former, the ASC 740 rules would apply and mandating a schedule UTP for partnerships could then make more sense. If not, then those financial reporting rules would not apply and schedule UTP reporting arguably should not then be extended to partnerships.
In the public announcement issued by the AICPA, it was stated:
“How should a partnership account for amounts it pays to the IRS for previous underpayments of tax, interest, and penalties? Said another way, does the underpayment represent an income tax of the partnership or the partners?
“Reply — In accordance with paragraphs 226–229 of FASB ASC 740-10-55, if income taxes paid by the entity are attributable to the entity, they should be accounted for under the FASB ASC 740, Income Taxes, accounting model. If, however, the income taxes paid by the entity are attributable to the owners, they should be accounted for as a transaction with the owners….In the case of the IRS partnership audit regime, the collection of tax from the partnership is merely an administrative convenience on the part of the government to collect the underpayment of income taxes from the partners in previous periods. Accordingly, the income taxes on partnership income, regardless of when paid, should continue to be attributed to the partners and, therefore, the partnership would not apply the FASB ASC 740 accounting model to account for amounts it pays to the IRS for previous underpayments of tax, interest, and penalties. Rather, a payment made by the partnership under the IRS partnership audit regime should be treated as a distribution from the partnership to the partners in the financial statements of the partnership.”
Is this statement of position by the AICPA correct? Section 6221(a) of the Internal Revenue Code states in part that any tax attributable to an adjustment by the IRS of a partnership-related item shall be assessed and collected at the partnership level. And section 6225(a)(1) states that if there is such an adjustment, the partnership shall pay an amount equal to the imputed underpayment. The regulations at reg. §301.6221(a)-1(a) reaffirm this by stating that any such tax under chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code shall be assessed and collected at the partnership level. However, section 701 of the Internal Revenue Code states clearly that “a partnership as such shall not be subject to the income tax imposed by [chapter 1]”, and this provision was not amended when the 2015 centralized partnership audit regime was enacted into law.
Whether the imputed underpayment is indeed a tax imposed on the partnership and not on behalf of its partners is an important question. However, if the financial accounting treatment will determine any action by the IRS in extending Schedule UTP to partnerships, should it otherwise decide to do so, then the financial accounting treatment would be driving the federal income tax treatment and that does not seem appropriate.
The centralized audit regime is so focused on partnership level adjustments and related matters that if applying schedule UTP to partnerships is determined to otherwise be a good idea, it should not be tied to the financial accounting treatment.
Would extending schedule UTP to partnerships be a good idea? What has the experience been over the past decade or so on corporate reporting? It would seem that if partnership audits are going to be treated more seriously today, these reporting questions should be addressed and resolved.