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A 360-Degree View: August & September 2018

by | Sep 11, 2018 |

Wrapping Up August – and Looking Forward to September

Top August Posts You Might Have Missed

Alta Wind: Federal Circuit Reverses Trial Court and Kicks Case Back to Answer Primary Issue

IRS Announces That CAP Will Continue

IRS Issues Long-Awaited Initial Guidance under Section 162(m)

 Upcoming Tax Controversy Activities in September

Our lawyers will present on key tax topics during the month of September. We hope to see you.

September 12, 2018: Elizabeth Chao, Britt Haxton, Kristen Hazel, Sandra McGill, Nina Siewert and Diann Smith are presenting on various state and local, US and international tax topics at the Tax in the City® event in Seattle, WA, including a presentation about Post-Wayfair. Please click here to register.

September 19, 2018: Linda Doyle, Kristen Hazel, Becky Martin and Jane May are presenting “Anatomy of a Whistleblower Case” at the inaugural Dallas Tax in the City® event in Dallas, TX. Please click here to register.

September 19, 2018: Laura Gavioli, Kristen Hazel, Alysse McLoughlin, Denise Mudigere and Marty Pugh are presenting are presenting on various state and local, US and international tax topics, including a presentation about Partnership Audit Rules and a presentation about Post-Wayfair, at the inaugural Dallas Tax in the City® event in Dallas, TX. Please click here to register.

September 19, 2018:  Steve Kranz and Eric Carstens are speaking at the Tax Executives Institute Seattle Chapter Meeting regarding the South Dakota v. Wayfair Supreme Court decision in Seattle, WA.

September 20, 2018: Mary Kay Martire is presenting “Audits and Beyond—Tips, Traps, and War Stories” at the Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois’ Annual Conference in Rolling Meadows, IL.

September 20, 2018: Catherine Battin is presenting “So Wayfair Happened—What’s Next?” at the Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois’ Annual Conference in Rolling Meadows, IL.

September 24, 2018: Tom Jones is presenting “Tax Law Developments Affecting Middle Market Captives” at the Self Insurance Institute of America in Austin, TX.

September 27, 2018: Andrew Roberson, Mark Thomas and Todd Welty are presenting on “Common Issues in Trusts and Estate Tax Controversies” at McDermott’s 2018 Trusts and Estates Controversy Forum in Chicago, IL.



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Weekly IRS Roundup August 13 – 17, 2018

by | Aug 20, 2018 | ,

Presented below is our summary of significant IRS guidance and relevant tax matters for the week of August 13 – 17, 2018:

August 13, 2018: The IRS and Treasury withdrew and re-proposed certain portions of proposed regulations regarding the new partnership audit regime. These proposed regulations make changes to four different regulation packages under the new rules.

August 15, 2018: Revenue Procedure 2018-42 extends the deadline for submitting on-cycle applications for opinion letters or pre-approved defined contribution plans.

August 17, 2018: The IRS published Revenue Ruling 2018-23, announcing the applicable federal rates for September 2018.

August 17, 2018: The IRS released their weekly list of written determinations (e.g., Private Letter Rulings, Technical Advice Memorandum and Chief Counsel Advice).

Special thanks to Kevin Hall in our DC office for this week’s roundup.



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Weekly IRS Roundup August 6 – 10, 2018

by | Aug 13, 2018 | ,

Presented below is our summary of significant IRS guidance and relevant tax matters for the week of August 6 – 10, 2018:

August 6, 2018: The IRS and Treasury issued final regulations, which provide guidance regarding the new partnership audit rules. The regulations describe the procedure for designating a partnership representative and the partnership representative’s authority. They also address the time, form and manner of an election to apply the new audit regime to prior partnership tax years.

August 6, 2018: The IRS published Revenue Procedure 2018-40, which describes procedures for small businesses to obtain automatic consent for changing an accounting method to a new method established under the TCJA (P.L. 115-97).

August 7, 2018: The IRS published an updated subject matter directory, available here.

August 8, 2018: The IRS published proposed regulations under new section 199A, which provides a 20 percent deduction for qualifying income earned by certain non-corporate taxpayers during tax years beginning after December 31, 2018. The proposed regulations address which taxpayers are eligible for the deduction and provide guidance regarding the computation of the deduction.

August 8, 2018: The IRS released Notice 2018-64, which includes a proposed revenue procedure that would provide guidance regarding calculating W-2 wages for purposes of the section 199A deduction.

August 10, 2018: The IRS released their weekly list of written determinations (e.g., Private Letter Rulings, Technical Advice Memorandum and Chief Counsel Advice).

Special thanks to Kevin Hall in our DC office for this week’s roundup.



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IRS Releases Second Quarter Update to 2017-2018 Priority Guidance Plan

by and | Feb 9, 2018 | ,

On February 7, 2018, the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) released its second quarter update to the 2017-2018 Priority Guidance Plan to identify tax issues it believes should be addressed through regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, notices and other published administrative guidance. The Priority Guidance Plan contains projects the Treasury hopes to complete during the 12-month period from July 2, 2017 through June 30, 2018. We previously posted on the first quarter 2017-2018 Priority Guidance plan here.

Most of the projects do not involve the issuance of new regulations, instead focus on guidance to taxpayers on a variety of tax issues important to individuals and businesses in the form of: (1) revocations of final, temporary, or proposed regulations (for our prior coverage, see here); (2) notices, revenue rulings and revenue procedures; (3) simplifying and burden reducing amendments to existing regulations; (4) proposed regulations; or (5) final regulations adopting proposed regulations. The initial 2017-2108 Priority Guidance Plan consisted of 198 guidance projects, 30 of which have already been completed. The second quarter update reflects 29 additional projects, including priority items as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) legislation enacted on December 22, 2017, and guidance published or released from October 13, 2017 through December 31, 2017.

(more…)



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IRS Releases 2017-2018 Priority Guidance Plan

by and | Oct 26, 2017 | ,

The US Department of Treasury (Treasury) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issue Priority Guidance Plans each year to identify the tax issues they believe should be addressed through regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, notice and other published administrative guidance. On October 20, 2017, the IRS and Treasury released the 2017-2018 Priority Guidance Plan.

  • Part 1 focuses on the eight regulations from 2016 that were identified pursuant to Executive Order 13789 (see here for prior coverage on Treasury’s report in response to this Order) and the intended actions related to those regulations.
  • Part 2 describes certain projects that Treasury and the IRS have identified as burden reducing and that they believe can be completed in the eight and a half months remaining in the plan year.
  • Part 3 describes the various projects related to the implementation of the new statutory partnership audit regime. See here for prior coverage.
  • Part 4 describe specific projects by subject area that will the focus of the balance of Treasury’s and the IRS’s efforts for the plan year.

Practice Point: The Priority Guidance Plan is a useful tool for taxpayers in that it highlights areas in which Treasury and the IRS are focused, both in the short-term and the long-term. Although items in the Priority Guidance Plan are subject to modification, they provide a blueprint for issues that the government views as important. For example, the plan reports guidance projects relating to Internal Revenue Code Section 199, focused on the treatment of computer software and films. These issues have created substantial controversy for the IRS and taxpayers, as we have previously reported. See https://www.taxcontroversy360.com/2017/04/the-irss-assault-on-section-199-computer-software-doesnt-compute/ and https://www.taxcontroversy360.com/2017/03/irs-campaign-focuses-on-definition-of-qualified-film-under-section-199/. Additional guidance would be welcomed.



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What to Expect During a Change of Administration

by , , and | Jan 25, 2017 | , , ,

With the inauguration of President Trump, and the accompanying change of administration, the American people have been promised great change in all areas of the federal government. One question we at McDermott have been frequently asked since the election is: what should a taxpayer expect from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) Tax Division while the transitions in the executive branch are taking place? Major tax policy changes are being discussed, but what about the immediate practical effects of a turnover in high-level personnel within these agencies, particularly if a taxpayer is under audit or investigation?

During a change in administration, taxpayers may be affected by any of the following:

  • If under audit, the exam team may ask for longer statute extensions than would otherwise apply, to account for possible delays in internal managerial-level approvals.
  • If a taxpayer is negotiating a settlement, and that settlement requires approval by the IRS National Office or the Assistant Attorney General for Tax, settlement approvals may be delayed due to personnel changes.
  • This applies to civil settlements reached with IRS Appeals, in Tax Court litigation, or in federal district court litigation. Delays are also possible for criminal agreements, including plea agreements, deferred prosecution agreements and non-prosecution agreements.
  • Ongoing litigation (particularly appellate litigation) may be stayed or delayed, to the extent a case involves a policy position that the administration may want to change.
  • The regulatory freeze enacted by the Trump administration also affects procedural regulations, including proposed regulations related to the new partnership audit rules.

Initial comments from prospective Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin indicate that he believes IRS staffing should be increased, which would be a welcome change.  Any significant changes like this are likely to be long-term, however, so we are unlikely to see their effect for some time.



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Do Partnerships Now Need to Reserve for Taxes?

by and | Jun 6, 2016 |

The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, P.L. 114-74, added new partnership audit rules, which are generally effective for tax years beginning in 2018. These new rules will allow the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to assess and collect tax due on partnership adjustments at the entity level. Some partnerships will be able to elect out of these rules. For partnerships that cannot elect out, practitioners are pondering whether the new audit rules will cause partnerships, historically pass through entities for tax purposes, to now be required to make a tax provision/reserve on their financial statements. In a tiered partnership context, even if an upper-tier partnership has elected out of the regime, practitioners are wondering whether the upper-tier partnership may still need to make a tax provision/reserve if a lower-tier partnership elects to push out adjustments to its partners, resulting in an entity level tax for the upper-tier partnership.

See our prior discussion of the new partnership audit rules. Also see Tax Notes Today, “New Partnership Audit Rules Could Require Tax Provision Review,” June 3, 2016.



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New Issue of ‘Focus on Tax Strategies and Developments’

by , , , , and | May 12, 2016 | , ,

We recently released the May 2016 issue of “Focus on Tax Strategies and Developments,” which can be viewed in its entirety here or through the links below. The issue includes four articles of interest to taxpayers:

Proposed Debt-Equity Regulations Have Dramatic Implications for Corporate Tax Planning and Compliance

By Thomas W. Giegerich and Michael J. Wilder

On April 4, 2016, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and US Department of the Treasury (Treasury)—without advance warning—released proposed regulations under Section 385 (the Proposed Regulations) that will, if finalized in their current form, have dramatic implications for US corporate tax planning and compliance.

The 2016 UK Budget – BEPS Measures and Tax Cuts

By James Ross

The 2016 UK Budget has generally been seen as good news for corporates, but it is not without potential concern, particularly for multinationals and private equity groups, who may need to re-evaluate longstanding financing structures.

Prescriptions of the Blue Book on the New Partnership Audit Rules

By Thomas W. Giegerich, Gary C. Karch, Kevin Spencer and Madeline Chiampou Tully

The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, signed into law in November, instituted a new regime for federal tax audits of entities treated as partnerships for US federal income tax purposes (the New Audit Rules) effective 2018. In March 2016, the Joint Committee on Taxation released its “General Explanation of Tax Legislation Enacted in 2015” (the Blue Book), which provides some background and explanation with respect to the New Audit Rules—this article discusses certain of the highlights of the Blue Book explanation.

Changes to China’s High and New Technology Enterprise (HNTE) Regime Both Sharpen Its Focus and Make Its Advantages More Broadly Available

By Robbie Chen

With the promulgation of the Corporate Income Tax (CIT) law in 2008, many preferential tax regimes (e.g. lower tax rates for foreign invested companies) were revoked. Under the CIT, the HNTE treatment, which reduces a qualified taxpayer’s applicable CIT rate from the standard 25 percent to 15 percent, is one of the few remaining tax preferences. As a result, any change to the HNTE rule attracts a great deal of attention.



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Substantial Changes to Auditing Partnerships

by | Feb 2, 2016 | , ,

On November 2, 2015, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 was signed into law, and which instituted significant changes to the rules governing the federal tax audits of partnerships for tax years after 2017.  In the absence of affirmatively electing partner-level adjustment, the new rules impose entity-level tax liability for Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit adjustments to partnerships.  The new rules are a significant departure from what has historically been merely pass-through treatment of partnerships for US federal income tax issues.

There is a small partnership exception to elect out of the new audit rules.  This election may apply to partnerships with 100 or fewer partners, each of which is an individual, a C corporation, an S corporation or an estate of a deceased partner.  However, any tiered partnership – partnerships that have partnerships as partners – are ineligible for the exception.

The new rules determine IRS audit adjustments at the partnership level for items of partnership income, gain, loss, deduction or credit.  The taxes owed on those adjustments are calculated at the maximum statutory tax rate, and assessed and collected from the partnership in the year that the audit or any judicial review is completed.  Additionally, the partnership is liable for all associated penalties and interest.

Alternatively, the partnership can elect out of the entity-level tax, but must furnish to every partner for each year under examination a statement of the partner’s share of any tax adjustments.  Under this election, each partner will be responsible for paying its taxes, penalties and interest related to the adjustment.

The new rules also change who speaks to the IRS on behalf of the partnership.  Instead of the “tax matters partner,” the new rules provide for a “partnership representative.”  The partnership representative, who no longer must be a partner, has sole power to act on behalf of the partnership during the audit.  Moreover, the partnership representative can bind both the partnership and the partners with respect to the IRS examination and adjustments.

The new partnership audit regime applies to partnership returns filed for tax years beginning after December 31, 2017.  Because the new rules make fundamental changes to the way that partnerships were audited in the past, we are hopeful that the delayed effective date will give taxpayers time to consider the potential effects of the new rules on their partnerships and operative agreements.  The new rules leave open numerous issues, and we expect the IRS to issue substantial guidance in the future.



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