Happy Holidays! Sorry for the delay in posting, hectic weekend, but what a great weekend. Thanksgiving, the start of Hanukkah, Keith had his first grandson, and it seemed like every third car had a Christmas tree tied to the top. Although it was a short week, there was still some excellent procedure news. Let’s start with a few Thanksgiving related items.
read more...- I found this estimate of the amount of taxes paid on the average Thanksgiving dinner on Accounting Today. The Tax Foundation has a summary of travel taxes and tolls (road taxes) for travel along the northeast found here. I’m not sure how accurate either are, but interesting posts about Thanksgiving and taxes.
- Jack Townsend’s Tax Procedure Blog has a summary of Eichelburg v. Comm’r, where the taxpayer’s claim was tossed for failing to timely file under the timely mailing is timely filing rule in Section 7502. His sin—thriftiness (and not following the rules). He went for the FedEx Express Saver, which is not an enumerated acceptable private delivery service under Notice 2004-83.
- From the Freakanomics blog, a podcast regarding fighting poverty. This post has to do with charity, but I think the concepts apply to the reallocation of assets (EITC) under the Code and the incentives that could raise a family up the socioeconomic ladder (student loan interest deduction, mortgage interest deduction). Oversimplifying the post, cash infusions are great at doing certain things like eliminating a current need, but not very good at assisting a family in moving out of poverty. Although this is not a stunning revelation, the stories and examples are very interesting, and made me wonder if we had good evidence behind a lot of the incentives and deterrents under the code. More behavioral economics. Perhaps we should change this to a behavioral economics blog.
- MauledAgain has a discussion of the Tax Court’s holding in Jibril v. Comm’r, where the Court disallowed dependency exemptions for a taxpayer’s cousins. The Court held that cousins did not fall within “qualifying children” under Section 152(c)(2) or “qualifying relatives” under Section 152(d)(2). Although this is not a novel holding, the last paragraph of Jim Maule’s post highlights the Court’s comments regarding the “sympathetic” taxpayer, and outlines some suggestions from Professor Maule on how to eliminate the harsh application of the statue when family members are supporting family members not specifically outlined in the statute.
- Messrs. Lipton, Richardson, and Jenner, attorneys at Baker & McKenzie, have written an article published at 119 Journal of Taxation 267 (December 2013), about the Tax Court holding in Barnes Group, Inc. v. Comm’r, concluding that the Tax Court wrongly applied the step transaction doctrine and discussing the imposition of penalties even though the taxpayer had a “substantial authority” opinion from PWC. The Baker attorneys disagree with the collapsing of the transaction under step-transaction, arguing that the transaction was very similar to a Rev. Rul. previously issued, and the differences were minor technicalities. What caught my eye was the discussion regarding the imposition of penalties even though PWC had issued a substantial authority opinion. Initially, I thought this was going to be more like the Canal Corp case, where the Court found the messy, aggressive opinion by PWC was not reasonable to rely upon. However, upon reviewing Barnes, the holding regarding the penalty was that Barnes failed to follow PWC’s advice when it did not comply with the “mere technicalities”, and waived its right to rely on PWC’s opinion. The Baker attorneys felt reasonable cause should be available, since the taxpayer relied on a competent advisor and that this opinion created substantial issues regarding advisor reliance. I, personally, thought the step-transaction doctrine was the key, and the case did not tread any new ground on advisor reliance.
- The Tax Court, in Meyer v. Comm’r, remanded a case back to Appeals for review after the SO failed to properly verify that statutory notice had been issued after the IRS issued a substitute for return. The case has a good discussion of the IRS procedures in this area, including how an SFR relates to a stat notice and how Appeals is supposed to verify that the IRS issued a stat notice when the taxpayer claims to have not received it. In light of Appeals not having adequately verified the stat notice’s issuance, there was also a discussion regarding whether the Court should remand or simply hold for the taxpayer. In this case, the Tax Court remanded, though it suggested that in the future, it may toss not remand and find for the taxpayer, and invalidate the assessment. If time permits, we may have more on this case later in the week or next week.
- Chief Counsel has issued advice, found here, regarding whether the Service must apply restitution payments required because of corporate income tax to the income tax, or whether it may be applied to other unpaid liabilities. Counsel determined that the Service can apply the payments as involuntary payments, in the Service’s best interests. Counsel relied on US v. Pepperman, out of the Third Circuit, which held that involuntary payments are defined as “any payment received by…the United States as a result of distrait or levy or from a legal proceeding in which the Government is seeking to collect its delinquent taxes or file a claim therefor.” Counsel determined that restitution only comes from court orders or settlements, and therefore was an involuntary payment. I would be surprised if there was not some argument to the contrary. This notice relates to restitution that arose prior to the effective date of Section 6201(a)(4), which allows IRS to assess certain orders of restitution. Either way, practitioners should be cognizant of this issue. Saltzman and Book Chapter 10 (revised and coming out next month) has a thorough discussion on the new restitution provisions, and I suspect a post on this coming up soon.
- Last week we touched on Notices 2013-78 and 2013-79, which contained draft procedures for seeking competent authority assistance and advance pricing agreements. KPMG provides a small summary of some of the changes in the new notices. I will either try to provide more information regarding these notices in the coming days and weeks, or find other good summaries, as the changes are substantial and important.
About Stephen Olsen
What exactly is a Notice of Deficiency?
We look forward to a discussion next week of the Tax Court order in the case of Edward A. & Cherilyn M. Jackson, Docket No. 12170-13S.
ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE
. . .No notice of deficiency in the name of Cherilyn M. Jackson is attached as an
exhibit to the petition. Rather, the only IRS document that is attached as an exhibit
to the petition is IRS Notice 3219N, which notice is dated February 25, 2013, and
addressed to Edward A. Jackson. Respondent, at paragraph 1 of his
aforementioned motion to dismiss, appears to regard IRS Notice 3219N as “a
statutory notice of deficiency * * * sent to Edward A. Jackson”. However, the
Court is not convinced that IRS Notice 3219N constitutes a notice of deficiency. . . .
Admittedly, IRS Notice 3219N includes the phrase “Notice of Deficiency”,
but such phrase appears in small typeface and is dwarfed by the following
command to the taxpayer, which command appears in bold and prominent typeface
that dominates IRS Notice 3219N:. . .
[text quoted]
. . .If IRS Notice 3219N is not a notice of deficiency, might it be a collection
notice? After all, it boldly announces to the taxpayer both the amount of “Tax you
owe” and the net “Amount due” after factoring in “Payments you made”, multiple
penalties, and “Interest charges”. Presumably, however, IRS Notice 3219N is not
a notice of determination, because (for example) there is nothing within the four
corners of the notice to suggest that it was issued by the IRS Office of Appeals.
Premises considered, it is hereby
ORDERED that, on or before Friday, December 20, 2013, the parties shall
show cause, separately and in writing, why the Court should not dismiss this case
in its entirety for want of a notice of deficiency or other jurisdictionally-relevant
IRS notice. If respondent should seek to show cause why the Court should not
dismiss this case in its entirety for lack of jurisdiction, then respondent shall (1)
include in his response a discussion regarding how IRS Notice 3219N (in generic
form) came into existence (e.g., Was it designed by IRS personnel or by an outside
contractor? Was it reviewed by Chief Counsel’s Office) and (2) attach to his
response a complete copy of the February 25, 2013 IRS Notice 3219N.
(Signed) Robert N. Armen, Jr.