Tax Blog

Four years have passed since Congress enacted the Troubled Assets Relief Program, better known as TARP.  After Treasury determined that frozen credit markets were threatening the U.S. financial industry and even the entire economy, it asked Congress to authorize the purchase of illiquid mortgages from banks.  Congress obliged, authorizing Treasury to purchase up to $700 billion of these so-called “toxic assets.”

Soon after the enactment of TARP, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson changed course and decided that investing directly in the banks would better serve TARP’s ...

Following the release of Ann and Mitt Romney’s tax returns, the news media and political commentators of all stripes have – to paraphrase Arlo Guthrie – detected, neglected, selected, rejected, and inspected those returns for a variety of commercial and political purposes.  As expected, the return shows substantial income, largely from passive investments.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Romneys’ returns – from a tax practitioner’s perspective – is the geographic location of a significant portion of their investments.  As MSNBC reported:

His 2010 return ...

In this morning’s Tax Notes (subscription required), Jeremiah Coder addresses a topic that we at the Tax Blawg have discussed a couple of times over the past two years: the tax consequences of a potential breakup of the euro.  For our prior coverage, see here and here.  As the currency lurches towards and away from a potential dissolution (in part or in whole), the tax fallout of such an event lurks in the background.

The Tax Notes article generally covers the major tax issue (e.g., currency gain/loss recognition) associated with a potential breakup of the euro.  As the article seemed to ...

Fox Business invited me to appear yesterday on “After The Bell” with Liz Claman and David Asman to discuss (i) the IRS reopening the disclosure initiative for offshore bank accounts and (ii) the ongoing debate about whether Congress should implement a corporate repatriation holiday.  A link to the video is below the fold.

See the video at Fox Business.

The reopening of the 2011 OVDI is good news for taxpayers.  While the initiative presently has no deadline by which taxpayers must come forward, the IRS can change the terms of the initiative at any time.  If the government experiences ...

The IRS announced yesterday a reopening of its 2011 offshore voluntary disclosure initiative (“OVDI”).  This program will have essentially the same terms as the 2011 OVDI, but with a penalty rate of 27.5 percent (rather than 25 percent) of the highest account balance during the period covered by the initiative.  The program requires filing eight years of amended tax returns and unfiled FBARs and the payment of tax, interest and a possible accuracy-related penalty on unreported income as well as the above-mentioned lump-sum penalty.  In certain cases, a reduced penalty for failure ...

On December 9th, the IRS issued final regulations under Code section 881 that treat a disregarded entity as a person to determine whether a “financing arrangement” exists for purposes of applying the conduit financing regulations.  The finalized regulations may deny tax benefits otherwise available from U.S. tax treaties when a multi-party financing transaction is executed with a disregarded entity serving as an intermediary.

Code section 7701(l) permits the IRS to issue regulations that recharacterize a multi-party financing transaction (often referred to as a conduit ...

As noted by Janet Novack at forbes.com, Judge England of the District Court for the Eastern District of California last week issued an order permitting the IRS to serve a "John Doe" summons on the California State Board of Equalization.  The summons seeks the names of residents who transferred property to relatives for little or no considerations.  The IRS hopes that the information it receives will identify individuals who should have, but did not, file Forms 709 - Gift Tax Returns.

According to Ms. Novack's post, the IRS' efforts involving information obtained from other states has ...

Editors’ note.  This is the first of a new periodic series on the Tax Blawg.  Mainstream press articles often implicate complex, technical tax issues.  Admirably, the press attempts to simplify the tax issues to make them more interesting and digestible for the general public, but sometimes simplification can leave readers with an incomplete or misleading understanding of the big tax picture.  For that portion of the audience who wants a little more background than the mainstream press can realistically provide, this series will unwind the tax issues discussed in prominent news ...

In a recent TaxBlawg post, my colleague Jonathan Prokup discussed the IRS’ intention to begin requesting electronic files as part of taxpayer examinations so that it can analyze the “metadata” contained in those files.  One of the concerns raised in the post, as announced in Chief Counsel Advice 201146017, was the possibility that such data in the hands of the IRS may be insecure and therefore potentially susceptible to theft by third-party hackers (which, by the way, could conceivably expose the IRS to damages for disclosure of taxpayer information under IRC § 6103

After MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection just over a month ago, investigators discovered that approximately $1.2 billion of assets in customers’ accounts had somehow disappeared.  Although no one at the firm has confirmed where the money went, news reports have suggested that the money may have been used to cover bad trades and debts to other financial institutions.  For example, the New York Times recently reported that investigators believe MF Global, in a frantic attempt to remain solvent, may have paid at least $200 million in customer funds to JPMorgan Chase.  Also, late ...