The Great, the Good, and the Bad of the Extender Legislation

Posted on December 20, 2015 by Russ

Normally I would write about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the extender legislation. It’s different this year, because the legislation passed by Congress and signed into law doesn’t have much that’s ugly. Instead, there’s some great news, some good news, and a bit of bad news.

Let’s start with what I think are the two best things about the extender legislation. First, many provisions were made permanent:

  • Section 179 deduction of $500,000;
  • Taxpayers age 70 1/2 (or older) can make $100,000 annual charitable contributions from their IRAs that will not be included in their income;
  • The sales tax deduction (as an alternative to deducting state and local income taxes);
  • The educator expense deduction (and it’s also indexed for inflation); and
  • We have a sense of permanency on many of the extenders.  There are more items made permanent (some of which are detailed below), but the fact that these are made permanent makes it far easier to plan for taxes.

Second, a few states have barred Enrolled Agents (what I am) from calling themselves Enrolled Agents. While this provision has not impacted me directly, EAs in Ohio and North Carolina could not in the past call themselves EAs. This was due to lobbying from state CPA associations in those states. Section 410 of the PATH legislation (which is where the Extenders are) contains the following provision:

Section 410. Clarification of enrolled agent credentials. The provision permits enrolled agents approved by the IRS to use the designation “enrolled agent,” “EA,” or “E.A.” The provision is effective on the date of enactment.

So my colleagues in Ohio and North Carolina (and perhaps elsewhere) can now call themselves what they are.

There are a few more provisions that I would put in the “Good” section. The Child Tax Credit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit (an education/college credit), and the Enhanced Earned Income Credit were made permanent. The research credit and the five-year recognition period for the Built In Gains Tax (C Corporations converting to S Corporations) were also made permanent. (There are other items made permanent; I’m just noting the highlights.)

Some items were extended solely for five years. These include 50% bonus depreciation (which is being phased-out over five years), the new markets tax credit, the work opportunity tax credit, and a controlled foreign corporation provision.

Many other items were extended for just two years. Note that nothing was extended for simply one year, so we know today what 2016 taxes are going to be. This is likely the first time in ten years (or longer) that we’ve had a very good idea of what the Tax Code for a year would be on January 1st of that year. The two-year items include the ability to deduct mortgage insurance (as an itemized deduction), the “above-the-line” deduction for qualified tuition expenses, tax credits for renewable energy sources, and the exclusion for qualified mortgage debt forgiveness.

There are some bad items, and these include a couple of the points I’ve mentioned. I strongly dislike welfare being done through the Tax Code. It causes the Tax Code to be complex, and puts the IRS in a mission it shouldn’t be in. Second, I dislike refundable tax credits; they lead to fraud and are difficult for the IRS to manage.

Overall, the fact that this has passed means that Tax Season should be able to open around January 19th. And that’s perhaps the best news of all.

Posted in IRS | Tagged | 1 Comment

2016 Standard Mileage Rates Released

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Russ

The IRS today announced the standard mileage rates for 2016:

  • $0.54/mile for business miles driven (down from $0.575/mile in 2015);
  • $0.19/mile for medical or moving purposes (down from $0.23/mile in 2015); and
  • $0.14/mile in service of a charitable organization (unchanged; set by statute).

You can either use this standard mileage rate or use actual expenses. Either way, it’s important to keep a mileage log!

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That’s A Lot of Roast Beef Sandwiches

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Russ

Nick’s Famous Roast Beef is in Beverly, Massachusetts. You can get a roast beef sandwich for $4.50 to $6.95, definitely a reasonable price. The Department of Justice is alleging that one reason the prices are low is that the owners skimmed $6 million from the business to lower their taxes. The owners of the business and the son of one of the owners have been charged with tax evasion.

Nick’s only takes cash, and the owners are alleged to have done a variation of the two sets of books idea: two sets of cash register tapes.

The indictment alleges that Eleni Koudanis had primary responsibility for the book-keeping functions of the business, and also recruited employees, including her son Steven Koudanis, to create false cash register receipts to use in connection with an IRS tax audit of Nick’s Famous Roast Beef. The true cash register receipts were allegedly destroyed and not provided to the tax preparer who prepared the business and personal tax returns.

Nicholas Koduanis, Nicholas Markos, and Eleni Koudanis were each charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the US by obstructing the IRS and ten counts of aiding and assisting in the filing of false tax returns. If convicted, they are looking at spending some time at ClubFed.

Posted in Tax Evasion | 1 Comment

If a Professional Prepares Your Return, Are You Exempt from the Accuracy-Related Penalty?

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Russ

An attorney’s tax return had two major errors: $450,000 of gross receipts were left off the return and $505,417 of Contract Labor expenses were deducted as not only Contract Labor but also as Cost of Goods Sold. The return was audited, and the taxpayer agreed with the additional income and that the labor was double-deducted and pays the tax. However, he disputed the 20% accuracy-related penalty. The dispute ends up in Tax Court.

The amount of income underreported is enough where the penalty would apply if an exception doesn’t exist.

The section 6662 penalty does not apply to any portion of an underpayment “if it is shown that there was a reasonable cause for such portion and that the taxpayer acted in good faith with respect to * * * [it]…” Reasonable cause has been found when a taxpayer selects a competent tax adviser, supplies the adviser with all the relevant information, and consistent with ordinary business care and prudence, relies on the adviser’s professional judgment as to the taxpayer’s tax obligations.

Put simply, the Court didn’t believe that the attorney used sufficient care in reviewing his return.

Petitioners contend that they reasonably and in good faith relied on their C.P.A.’s advice in the preparation of their 2010 return. We disagree. On the basis of Mr. Ogden’s testimony at trial, we find that his cursory review of petitioners’ return did not constitute proper review…

A reasonable inspection of the return by petitioners would have uncovered both the unreported gross receipts and the improperly claimed deduction. Although petitioners’ C.P.A. [firm] testified that the portion of contract labor expenses treated as COGS on petitioners’ return was hard to spot, we believe Mr. Ogden had sufficient knowledge to detect the error on the return. Because Mr. Ogden prepared the Forms 1099-MISC for the attorneys at his firm, he should have known the total amount of contract labor expenses. Even so, the amount of contract labor expenses reported on petitioners’ return did not remotely match the amount of total contract labor expenses reported on Mr. Ogden’s law firm’s Form 1096. This, combined with the fact that petitioners did not report $450,000 of income on their return, shows that more diligence was needed on their part to reasonably assess their proper tax liability. [citations omitted]

There are a couple of lessons from this decision. First, have everyone you need at the trial. While the CPA who represented the taxpayer in the audit testified at the trial, the CPA who prepared the return did not. “Petitioners did not call the C.P.A. who prepared their 2010 return as a witness, and they presented no evidence that this C.P.A. gave “advice” that they could rely on.” This didn’t sit well with the Court.

More importantly, if you’re an attorney, a CPA, or an Enrolled Agent, the Tax Court is going to expect you to know tax law. You will also be held to a higher standard on any financial disputes. (The same will be true of other financial officers, such as a controller, CFO, etc.) When you’re reviewing a tax return, do not simply take a cursory look at the return. You should want to make sure it’s accurate. If you’re signing a return with $1 million of income, isn’t it worth more than a few seconds to review it? I would certainly think so. The Tax Court definitely did.

Case: Ogden v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2015-241

Posted in Tax Court | 1 Comment

Not a Pigg or a Turkey of a Decision

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Russ

Clarence Leland is an attorney in Mississippi. However, he bought a farm in Turkey, Texas. He entered into a crop share agreement with a Mr. Pigg. The farm didn’t make money, and Mr. Leland claimed the losses on his 2009 and 2010 tax returns stating he materially participated in the activity. The IRS didn’t allow the loss, claiming the passive activity rules prevented Mr. Leland from claiming the loss. They also added an accuracy-related penalties. The dispute made its way to Tax Court.

The passive activity rules prevent taxpayers from taking losses if they’re not materially participating in an activity. Mr. Leland didn’t maintain contemporaneous logs, but he was able to reconstruct logs that showed he worked 359.9 hours in 2009 and 209.5 hours in 2010. There was plenty of activity to be done on the farm:

Maintaining the 1,276-acre farm requires petitioner to perform a lot of long, hard work. Petitioner performs most of these tasks himself, but he sometimes has assistance from his son or a friend, Steve Coke. Aside from petitioner, Mr. Pigg, Mr. Coke, and petitioners’ son, no individuals perform any tasks on the farm. Petitioner visits the farm several times each year in order to perform necessary tasks, commuting approximately 13-16 hours each way, including the time it takes to load equipment onto his trailer. The farm has approximately 6-8 miles of perimeter roads and 18-20 miles of interior roads that must be bush hogged and disced regularly in order to remain passable. A Bush Hog is a device that is pulled behind a tractor to cut vegetation and clear land. Discing involves churning and plowing soil to uproot any existing vegetation. Trees and brush that grow near the roads must be controlled through spraying and chopping down limbs that protrude onto the roadways. Because high winds can erode soil on the roads, wheat must be planted each fall to prevent erosion on the roads and on acreage that is not part of the 130 acres planted and harvested by Mr. Pigg. Almost all of the roads have fences running parallel that must be maintained…In a year before the tax years 2009 and 2010, wild hogs ate 250,000 pounds of peanuts that petitioner and Mr. Pigg had grown on the farm. As a result, petitioner has to spend significant time controlling the wild hog population, which he accomplishes through hunting and trapping.

There are seven tests that allow one to qualify as materially participating in an activity, including “the individual participates in the activity for more than 100 hours during the taxable year, and such individual’s participation in the activity for the taxable year is not less than the participation in the activity of any other individual (including individuals who are not owners of interests in the activity) for such year.” Mr. Pigg spent about 30 hours on the farm in 2009 and a lesser amount in 2010.

Petitioner’s reconstructed logs, his receipts and invoices related to farm expenses, and his credible testimony are all reasonable means of calculating time spent on the farming activity during tax years 2009 and 2010…We are satisfied that petitioner’s participation was not less than the participation of any other individual, including Mr. Pigg, Mr. Coke, and petitioners’ son, during tax years 2009 and 2010…Accordingly, petitioner materially participated in the farming activity during tax years 2009 and 2010, and the deductions attributable to that activity are not limited by section 469.

From a footnote, we discover that the IRS objected to the logs was that they were not contemporaneous. But that’s not required:

Respondent’s main objection to petitioner’s reconstructed logs was that they were not prepared contemporaneously with the activity. Sec. 1.469-5T(f)(4), Temporary Income Tax Regs., 53 Fed. Reg. 5727 (Feb. 25, 1988), does not require contemporaneous records, and we are satisfied that petitioner has established material participation through other reasonable means. Respondent did not dispute petitioner’s inclusion of travel time in his reconstructed logs. The facts of this case establish that petitioner’s travel time was integral to the operation of the farming activity rather than incidental.

So the decision is anything but a turkey for Mr. Leland, and the farming isn’t a passive activity. Mr. Leland also wins on the accuracy-related penalties, as the returns were accurate. It’s nice to see a plaintiff win at Tax Court on passive activities; I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more cases in this area in the future (because of the new net investment tax).

Case: Leland v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2015-240

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Six Month Vacation Leads to Four and Eight Years at ClubFed

Posted on December 13, 2015 by Russ

Everyone likes vacations. Last year, I went to New Zealand and Australia. Unfortunately, this year’s vacation wasn’t anything like that trip. An Oregon couple has learned that some vacations are better off not taken.

As I previously wrote, Ronald and Dorothea Joling decided after their conviction on tax charges to take a vacation to Arizona rather than show up for sentencing. The US Marshals Service apprehended the couple in Clarksdale, Arizona. On Thursday, Ronald Joling was sentenced to 97 months at ClubFed (eight years and one month) and Dorothea Joling received four years (48 months) at ClubFed. And there’s more! The Jolings are still waiting to be tried after being charged with filing retaliatory bogus liens against various federal judges, prosecutors, and the federal court clerk’s office.

Acting US Attorney for Oregon Billy Williams stated,

This is an egregious case. Not only did the Jolings refuse to pay their fair share of taxes like the rest of us, they retaliated against federal employees who were just doing their jobs. After a jury convicted them at trial, they cowardly refused to show up for sentencing and fled the state. They were fugitives for six months, requiring additional resources to locate and arrest them in Arizona. They are now in custody and will serve their appropriately lengthy sentences.

You will have to wait another eighteen days to see if the Jolings’s actions are good enough to win the 2015 Tax Offender of the Year award.

Posted in Oregon, Tax Evasion | 1 Comment

NY Judge Rules Against DFS Sites

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Russ

New York Judge Manuel Mendez granted the New York State Attorney General a preliminary injunction that bans DraftKings and FanDuel from operating in New York. Both sites will appeal, but for now daily fantasy sports (DFS) is gone from the Empire State.

As for legislative solutions, there’s an additional issue raised by attorney Daniel Wallach this morning: The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. This act banned traditional sports betting in all but four states. Mr. Wallach believes that the law could be read to ban DFS, too:

This decision shouldn’t be a surprise, and I expect it to be upheld on appeal. (Note that I am not an attorney, so please don’t take what I write as legal advice.) As I wrote back in mid-November, I expect more states to ban DFS while some will move to explicitly allow it (by regulating it). Remember that the first instinct of any regulator is to ban anything that’s new. With DFS not only is that an issue, there’s also the dubious legality of it.

UPDATE: DraftKings and FanDuel filed appeals. Both sites received temporary stays against the original injunction until January 4th.

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Yet Another Reason Why Requiring Tax Professionals to Obtain a License Won’t Stop Tax Professionals from Behaving Badly

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Russ

In California, everyone who prepares a tax return for money must have a license. Individuals must either be an Enrolled Agent, a CPA, an attorney, or obtain a license from the California Tax Education Council. Of course, that means that no California tax professional would commit tax fraud, right?

Of course not. Where there’s money involved there will always be people trying to obtain that money fraudulently. That’s the case whether you need no license, one license, or 100 licenses to prepare a tax return. Take the case of Melissa Ann Vega (aka Lisa Vega).

Ms. Vega owned L&T Works, a tax preparation firm in San Diego. Last year, stories in San Diego media describe deductions that were $3,000 that became $31,000. The IRS raided the facility in April 2014.

Come January 2015, Ms. Vega was arrested and released on bond. What she then did has gotten her a coveted nomination for Tax Offender of the Year:

Vega was released on bond in this case on January 28, 2015. Although the court informed her not to commit another federal crime, Vega once again began filing false tax returns with the IRS within days of her release. Without the clients’ knowledge, Vega fraudulently inflated or created credits and deductions to maximize her clients’ false returns. The IRS uncovered her fraud, and Vega was arrested on February 25, 2015. In furtherance of her conspiracy, Vega agreed with Deanna Dave (charged in Criminal Case No. 15CR2715-JM) to misrepresent to the grand jury that Dave was the owner and paid-return preparer for the tax returns filed in February 2015. In truth, Vega continued as the owner of her tax preparation business and prepared the false tax returns which she filed for her clients. On November 17, 2015, Dave pleaded guilty to making a false declaration before the grand jury, and her sentencing is scheduled for February 5, 2016 before Judge Miller.

As for her initial crimes, these are detailed in the DOJ press release:

Vega told her co-conspirators and employees that they should maximize clients’ refunds by filing for a $4,000 education credit, even though the client did not attend school for that tax year. To conceal her role in the fraud, Vega intentionally omitted her name and tax return preparer identification number on the false tax returns she prepared for her clients. In total, Vega’s fraud caused the IRS to pay more than $7 million in artificially-inflated tax refunds based solely on the false education credits. Moreover, Vega admitted that she and her co-conspirators stole the identities of other persons, including minors, and used them on the false tax returns in order to further inflate the amount of the tax refund paid by the IRS.

Vega did not shy away from personally profiting from her fraudulent scheme. In addition to charging her clients between $150 and $200 per return, Vega also admitted that she stole more than $300,000 in false tax refunds from her clients by directing their refunds into bank accounts that she controlled. Vega spent this money for her own personal benefit. Vega also admitted that she evaded her own income taxes and filed false personal tax returns in which she fraudulently claimed withholding credits, education credits, and tax credits for minor dependents that she did not support and were not related to her. According to court documents, Vega evaded more than $156,000 in taxes due to the IRS for tax years 2009 through 2013.

As noted above, Ms. Vega was in California; she needed a license to prepare tax returns. That included annual continuing education in ethics. She apparently missed that, along with the commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” Given she prepared more than 4,000 false tax returns with the IRS (and presumably an equal number of false returns with California’s Franchise Tax Board) in attempting to obtain more than $7 million in phony refunds, she’s likely heading to ClubFed.

Posted in Tax Fraud | 1 Comment

Third Party Transcript Requests Reportedly Will No Longer be Processed by the IRS

Posted on December 2, 2015 by Russ

Form 4506-T allows a third-party to obtain a transcript with your signed permission. One use of the form has been to obtain a tax return transcript when obtaining a mortgage. There have been reports that some individuals who completed this form didn’t have the transcripts sent on. Well, it appears that the IRS is no longer honoring this form unless there’s a Tax Information Authorization (Form 8821) or a Power of Attorney (Form 2848) on file. (Of course, either a Form 8821 or a Form 2848 allows a transcript to be generated.)

This news came out today via individuals calling the IRS’s Practitioner Priority Service. This policy has not been officially published anywhere by the IRS, but based on IRS actions it appears that this policy was put in place because of identity theft concerns.

I do not know what mortgage companies will do in the future, but I would assume they will add a Form 8821 to their requests. I’m not sure how a mortgage company sending over two pieces of paper to the IRS rather than one lowers the risk of identity theft, but whatever.

In related news, the Oklahoma Tax Commission is no longer accepting Oklahoma Power of Attorney forms via fax; they must be mailed to the tax agency. It’s not clear what prompted this change but I’m guessing it’s also identity theft concerns.

Posted in IRS, Oklahoma | Tagged | 1 Comment

My Love/Hate Relationship with the FTB

Posted on December 1, 2015 by Russ

For those who don’t know, I used to reside in California. I prepare more California tax returns than any other state’s returns (though it is no longer a majority–or even close to a majority–of my clients). I have a lot of experience in dealing with California’s income tax agency, the Franchise Tax Board.

The FTB, like the IRS, has a practitioner priority service. And you actually get through to humans when you call the number. Though not available on the FTB’s practitioner line, several FTB numbers have “call back” service. The recording tells you how long the average wait time is (e.g., between 45 minutes and 72 minutes), and you can elect to wait on hold or enter your phone number and the system will call you back when it’s your turn to be first in the queue. The system has one “flaw”: I’ve been called back faster than the average wait time.

The FTB also has an annual meeting with the California Society of Enrolled Agents (CSEA). The FTB posted in its December Tax News how to deal with partial year dispositions and late partial disposition elections for tax years 2012-2014.

Yet for all the excellence in how the FTB communicates some of the FTB’s practices leave a lot to be desired. Back in 2013, the FTB invented law related to qualified small business stock. The FTB was convicted of committing fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress in the Gilbert Hyatt matter. This case will be heard for the second time at the US Supreme Court next week. The Hyatt case is just one example of what appears to me to be the normal FTB strategy: Delay cases and make things as expensive as possible for litigants.

And the FTB has also been persnippity and literal at times. You definitely want your paperwork to be exactly right when dealing with them. So you have to take the bad with the good when dealing with the FTB.

Posted in California | Tagged | 1 Comment