TAXLITIGATOR Blog

Posted by Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. Posted on Wednesday, November 08, 2017

Section 5321(a)(5)(A) provides that the Secretary of Treasury “may impose a civil money penalty” on anyone who violates the FBAR reporting requirements.  Originally, the penalty for willful violation was the greater of the amount in the account (not to exceed $100,000) or $25,000. In 2004, Congress amended the FBAR penalty provision to increase the maximum willful […] Read More…

Posted by Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. Posted on Wednesday, November 08, 2017

BNA Daily Tax Report The IRS, cracking down on failures to report foreign bank accounts, isn’t automatically presuming that failures are  “willful”—a finding that incurs a high penalty. Tax practitioners aren’t fully convinced. “There’s no presumption of willfulness” for not filing a required Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR), said Carolyn A. Schenck, […] Read More…

Posted by Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. Posted on Monday, November 06, 2017

Due to overwhelming popularity, an encore presentation has been scheduled with live Q&A for Thursday, November 30, 1:00pm-2:30pm EST. Click here for more information. Form 5471, Information Return of U.S. Persons With Respect to Certain Foreign Corporations, is one of the most complex reporting obligations in the U.S. offshore information tax reporting regime. A taxpayer […] Read More…

Posted by Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. Posted on Friday, November 03, 2017

At the 2017 Annual Meeting of the California Tax Bars, Steve Toscher received the 2017 Joanne M. Garvey Award from the Taxation Section of the State Bar of California recognizing his lifetime achievements and outstanding contributions in the field of tax law! With respect to this award, the official statement of Taxation Section provides “Joanne […] Read More…

Posted by Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. Posted on Monday, October 30, 2017

The Government prevailed in each of the FBAR penalty cases that had previously been decided, but finally a taxpayer convinced a court that he was not liable for the 50% willful penalty. The Court in Bedrosian v. United States (E.D. PA Sept. 20, 2017) held that a taxpayer was not liable for the penalty based […] Read More…

Posted by Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. Posted on Friday, October 27, 2017

A taxpayer’s trade or business undertakings can be combined to form an “activity” for purposes of the material participation rules if the undertakings “form an appropriate economic unit for measuring gain or loss under the passive activity rules,” considering all relevant facts and circumstances.  Taxpayers have the freedom to group their undertakings using any reasonable […] Read More…

Posted by Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. Posted on Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Tax Analysts, 2017 A Colorado marijuana business is alleging that an IRS’s civil tax audit is actually a ruse to gather information for a Justice Department criminal drug prosecution. The three petitioners in Rifle Remedies v. United States, No. 1:17-mc-00062-RM (D. Colo.), are seeking to quash a third-party summons issued in an IRS audit to […] Read More…

Posted by Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. Posted on Monday, October 23, 2017

Law360, Washington (October 20, 2017, 8:25 PM EDT) — Although an IRS expert lied on the stand about his work on cases like that of Michael Jackson’s estate, with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, that isn’t enough to exclude his testimony outright and gut a crucial part of the agency’s case, a U.S. […] Read More…

Posted by Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. Posted on Tuesday, October 17, 2017

For taxpayers with rental properties, qualifying as a real estate professional under IRC Section 469(c)(7) is only the first obstacle in avoiding passive activity treatment for rental properties. Definition of Rental Activity. As a threshold matter, it is important to determine whether an activity is in fact a rental activity for purposes of Section 469.  […] Read More…

Posted by Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. Posted on Tuesday, October 17, 2017

The dominoes continue to fall from last year’s Supreme Court reversal of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell’s conviction for honest services fraud, for his having set up meetings in exchange for money. On July 12, 2017, the Second Circuit reversed a politician’s convictions for honest services fraud and money laundering because the jury instruction ran […] Read More…

Posted by Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. Posted on Tuesday, October 17, 2017

As part of the Internal Revenue Service’s (“IRS”) continuing international enforcement effort, it recently released training materials on what it means to be “substantially complete” for an international information return.  The training is significant because the failure to file a “substantially complete” foreign information return can subject the filer to substantial penalties and the failure […] Read More…

Posted by Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. Posted on Monday, October 09, 2017

In May 2017, UCLA Law awarded Justin Casey ’17 the Bruce I. Hochman Award for Excellence in the Study of Tax Law. The $15,000 award is presented annually by UCLA Law tax faculty to a graduating student who has demonstrated outstanding proficiency.  Casey graduated Order of the Coif, and earned a certificate in the Business […] Read More…