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Summary Opinions through 12/18/15

Posted on Jan. 14, 2016

Sorry for the technical difficulties over the last few days.   We are glad to be back up and running, and hopefully won’t have any other hosting issues in the near future.

December had a lot of really interesting tax procedure items, many of which we covered during the month, including the PATH bill.  Below is the first part of a two part Summary Opinions for December.  Included below are a recent case dealing with Section 6751(b)(1) written approval of penalties, a PLR dealing with increasing carryforward credits from closed years , an update on estate tax closing letters, reasonable cause with foundation taxes, an update on the required record doctrine, and various other interesting tax items.

  • In December, PLR 201548006 was issued regarding whether an understated business credit for a closed year could be carried forward with the correct increased amounts for an open year.  The taxpayer was a partner in a partnership and shareholder in an s-corp.  The conclusion was that the corrected credit could be carried forward based on Mennuto v. Comm’r, 56 TC 910, which had allowed the Service to recalculate credits for a closed year to ascertain the correct tax in the open year.
  • IRS has issued web guidance regarding closing letters for estate tax returns, which can be found here.  This follows the IRS indicating that closing letters will only be issued upon taxpayer request (and then every taxpayer requesting a closing letter).  My understanding from other practitioners is that the transcript request in this situation has not worked well.  And, some states will not accept this as proof the Service is done with its audit.  Many also feel it is not sufficient to direct an executor to make distributions.  Seems as those most are planning on just requesting the letters.
  • Models and moms behaving badly (allegedly).  Bar Refaeli and her mother have been arrested for tax fraud in Israel.  The Israeli taxing authority claims that Bar told her accountant that she resided outside of Israel, while she was living in homes within the country under the names of relatives.  Not model behavior.
  • The best JT (sorry Mr. Timberlake and Jason T.), Jack Townsend, has a post on his Federal Tax Procedure Blog on the recent Brinkley v. Comm’r case out of the Fifth Circuit, which discusses the shift of the burden of proof under Section 7491.
  • PMTA 2015-019 was released providing the government’s position on two identity theft situations relating to validity of returns, and then sharing the return information to the victims.  The issues were:

1. Whether the Service can treat a filed Business Masterfile return as a nullity when the return is filed using a stolen EIN without the knowledge of the EIN’s owner.

2. Whether the Service can treat a filed BMF return as a nullity when the EIN used on the return was obtained by identifying the party with a stolen name and SSN…

4. Whether the Service may disclose information about a potentially fraudulent business or filing to the business that purportedly made the filing or to the individual who signed the return or is identified as the “responsible party” when the Service suspects the “responsible party” or business has no knowledge of the filing.

And the conclusions were:

1. The Service may treat a filed BMF return as a nullity when a return is filed using a stolen EIN without the permission or knowledge of the EIN’s owner because the return is not a valid return.

2. The Service may treat a filed BMF return as a nullity when the EJN used on the return was obtained by using a stolen name for Social Security Number for the business’s responsible person. The return is not a valid return.

  • Back in 2014, SCOTUS decided Clark v. Rameker, which held that inherited IRAs were not retirement accounts under the bankruptcy code, and therefore not exempt from creditors.  In Clark, the petitioners made the claim for exemption under Section 522(b)(3)(C) of the Bankruptcy Code for the inherited retirement account, and not the state statute (WI, where petitioner resided, allowed the debtor to select either the federal exemptions or the state exemptions).  End of story for those using federal exemptions, but some states allow selection like WI between state or federal exemptions, while others have completely opted out of the federal exemptions, such as Montana.  A recent Montana case somewhat follows Clark, but based on the different Montana statute.  In In Re: Golz, the Bankruptcy Court determined that a chapter 7 debtor’s inherited IRA was not exempt from creditors.  The Montana law states:

individual retirement accounts, as defined in 26 U.S.C. 408(a), to the extent of deductible contributions made before the suit resulting in judgment was filed and the earnings on those contributions, and Roth individual retirement accounts, as defined in 26 U.S.C. 408A, to the extent of qualified contributions made before the suit resulting in judgment was filed and the earnings on those contributions.

The BR Court, relying on a November decision of the MT Supreme Court, held that an inherited IRA did not qualify based on the definition under the referenced Code section of retirement account.  I believe opt-out states cannot restrict exemption of retirement accounts beyond what is found under Section 522, but it might be possible to expand the exemption (speculation on my part).   Here, the MT statute did not broaden the definition to include inherited IRAs.

  • In August, we covered US v. Chabot, where the 3rd Circuit agreed with all other circuits in holding the required records doctrine compels bank records to be provided over Fifth Amendment challenges.  SCOTUS has declined to review the Circuit Court decision.
  • PLR 201547007 is uncool (technical legal term).   The PLR includes a TAM, which concludes reasonable cause holdings for abatement of penalties are not precedent (and perhaps not persuasive) for abating the taxable expenditure tax on private foundations under Section 4945(a)(1).  The foundation in question had assistance from lawyers and accountants in all filing and administrative requirements, and those professionals knew all relevant facts and circumstances.  The foundation apparently failed to enter into a required written agreement with a donee, and may not have “exercised expenditures responsibly” with respect to the donee.  This caused a 5% tax to be imposed, which was paid, and a request for abatement due to reasonable cause was filed.  Arguments pointing to abatement of penalties (such as Section 6651 and 6656) for reasonable cause were made.  The Service did not find this persuasive, and makes a statutory argument against allowing reasonable cause which I did not find compelling.  The TAM indicates that the penalty sections state the penalty is imposed “unless it is shown that such failure is due to reasonable cause and not due to willful neglect.”  That language is also found regarding Section 4945(a)(2), but not (1), the first tier tax on the foundation.  That same language is found, however, under Section 4962(a), which allows for abatement if the event was due to reasonable cause and not to willful neglect, and such event was corrected within a reasonable period.  Service felt that Congress did not intend abatement to apply to (a)(1), or intended a different standard to apply, because reasonable cause language was included only in (a)(2).  I would note, however, that Section 4962 applies broadly to all first tier taxes, but does specify certain taxes that it does not apply to.  Congress clearly selected certain taxes for the section not to apply, and very easily could have included (a)(1) had it intended to do so.

I’m probably devoting too much time to this PLR/TAM, but it piqued my interest. The Service also stated that the trust cannot rely on the lack of advice to perform certain acts as advice that such acts are not necessary.  I am not sure how the taxpayer would know he or she was not receiving advice if it asked the professionals to ensure all distributions were proper and all filings handled.  I can hear the responses (perhaps from Keith) that this is a difficult question, and perhaps the lawyer or accountant should be responsible.  I understand, but have a hard time getting behind the notion that a taxpayer must sue someone over missed paperwork when the system is so convoluted.  Whew, I was blowing so hard, I almost fell off my soapbox.

  • This is more B.S. than the tax shelters Jack T. is always writing about.  TaxGirl has created her list of 100 top tax twitter accounts you must follow, which can be found here. Lots of great accounts that we follow from writers we love, but PT was not listed (hence the B.S.).  It stings twice as much, as we all live within 20 miles of TaxGirl, and we sometimes contribute to Forbes, where she is now a full time writer/editor.  Thankfully, Prof. Andy Gerwal appears to be starting a twitter war against TaxGirl (or against CPAs because Kelly included so many CPAs and so few tax professors).  We have to throw our considerable backing and resources behind Andy, in what we assume will be a brutal, rude, explicit, scorched earth march to twitter supremacy.  We are excited about our first twitter feud, even if @TaxGirl doesn’t realize we are in one.
  • This doesn’t directly relate to tax procedure or policy, but it could be viewed as impacting it, and we reserved the right to write about whatever we want.  Here is a blog post on the NYT Upshot blog on how we perceive the economy, how we delude ourselves to reinforce our political allegiances (sort of like confirmation bias), and how money can change that all.
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