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In a recent private letter ruling issued on November 18, 2016, PLR 201710007, the Service ruled that the transfer of a stock portfolio to a surviving partnership from four terminating partnerships will not, under the facts, result in a diversification of portfolios under §721(b) thereby avoiding gain recognition. This provision may pose a trap for the wary for taxpayers who do not give careful consideration in transferring appreciated property to a partnership (or corporation). The Service furt… Read More

An Instance Where the Business Taxpayer Can Win Despite the Absence of Economic Substance !!! In Summa Holdings Inc. v. Commissioner, No. 16-1712 (Feb. 16, 2017), the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the Tax Court decision below which held that payments a corporation made to a DISC were not DISC commissions but instead were to be characterized as dividends to shareholders followed by excess contributions to their Roth IRAs. Such recharacterization would have eliminated the tax benefits as… Read More

A bill, H.R. 5, recently introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017, proposes to end the Chevron deference doctrine, passed the House of Representatives by a 50 vote majority (283-183) on January 11. The bill was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, in addition to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on Small Business. Read More

In General: The View From the United States on What Constitutes a Permanent Establishment A U.S. treaty may exempt from income tax computed on a “net basis” the business profits of an individual or company resident in a treaty country unless such business profits are attributable to a “permanent establishment” (PE) maintained in the United States by such individual or company. tax the business profits of a resident of a treaty country unless those profits are attributable to a “permane… Read More

Last January, the European Commission (COM (2016) 26 final)(2016/011 (CNS)) proposed for Council action rules against tax avoidance practices to fight against tax avoidance and aggressive tax planning, both at the global and EU levels. This fight has been ongoing for several years now and is reflected in part by the BEPS project of the OECD which was recently finalized and adopted by the G20. The schemes targeted by this Directive involve situations where taxpayers act against the actual purpose… Read More

On October 5, 2016 the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury issued Final and Temporary Regulations (T.D. 9788) pertaining to how liabilities are to be allocated and treated for purposes of applying the disguised sales rules under section 707 and when certain obligations will be as a recourse liability under section 752. Shortly thereafter, new proposed regulations (REG-122855-15) withdrew a portion of the recent rule-making to the extent not adopted in the final regulations and contain new… Read More

On December 12, 2016, the Service (and Treasury) issued Final Regulations in T.D. 9796 on the treatment of certain domestic entities that are disregarded from their owners as corporations for purposes of Section 6038A. Read More

As part of The Bipartisan Budget Agreement of 2015, which the President signed into law on November 2, 2015, Congress repealed the complex and much-criticized partnership entity-level audit (“ELA”) rules under the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (“TEFRA”), including the electing large partnership rules. The new law replaces the ELA rules with a set of “streamlined” entity-level audit (“SELA”) rules designed to enhance the IRS’s ability to audit more large partn… Read More