Monthly Archives: October 2017

The U.S. Department of the Treasury  posted on October 4, 2017 that it would amend or completely do away with eight tax regulations issued under the Obama administration, including rules regarding corporate debt and transfers of estates, as part of an effort to simplify the tax code.

Treasury also announced that it continues to work to identify additional regulations for modification or repeal by evaluating significant regulations issued recently and initiating a comprehensive review of all regulations, regardless of when they were issued.

 Which Will Begin in the Fourth Quarter of 2017.

  

• Regulations under Section 752 on Liabilities Recognized as Recourse Partnership Liabilities. Treasury and the IRS currently believe that the temporary regulations relating to disguised sales should be proposed for revocation and the prior regulations reinstated. Treasury and IRS will continue to study the issue and consider comments related to bottom-dollar guarantees.

The Treasury report identified the following regulations to consider for substantial revision:

• Temporary Regulations under Section 337(d) on Certain Transfers of Property to Regulated Investment Companies and Real Estate Investment Trusts. Treasury and the IRS plan to propose to replace the temporary regulations with revised regulations designed to narrow their application.
• Final Regulations under Section 367 on the Treatment of Certain Transfers of Property to Foreign Corporations. These regulations, which eliminate the ability to transfer certain property to foreign corporations without immediate or future U.S. tax, address issues that could also be addressed as Treasury continues to work with Congress on fundamental tax reform. In order to protect the U.S. tax base in the meantime, Treasury plans to continue to implement these regulations. However, Treasury and the IRS also plan to develop exceptions to the regulations. 
• Final Regulations under Section 987 on Income and Currency Gain or Loss With Respect to a Section 987 Qualified Business Unit. These regulations pertain to foreign currency translations and other foreign currency transactions, and Treasury plans to propose substantial revisions. Treasury plans to immediately announce relief allowing taxpayers to postpone the application of these rules.  Treasury plans to propose changes to further simplify the regulation, and also plans to consider more fundamental changes that might be implemented to address taxpayer concerns.  

The planned actions include revoking regulations under section 385 of the tax code that recharacterizes certain corporate debt as equity and replacing them with streamlined documentation rules and withdrawing proposed estate transfer rules under section 2704 intended to prevent the undervaluation of transferred interests in corporations and partnerships for estate tax purposes, according to the Treasury.

The eight regulations were initially flagged as in need of reform in a report issued in July.

In addition, later this year Treasury will begin repealing later more than 200 regulations that it has identified as adding to the burden of the tax code, the department said.

“This is only the beginning of our efforts to reduce the burden of tax regulations,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

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A priest for the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose was sentenced to 36 months in prison, announced Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Brian J. Stretch for the Northern District of California.

According to documents and information provided to the court, from 2008 through 2011, Hien Minh Nguyen stole money that his parishioners donated to the Diocese of San Jose through cash and checks made as offerings during religious services.  He deposited such checks into his personal bank account and used the funds for his benefit.  He also wrote checks drawn on church business accounts to pay for personal expenses.  Nguyen evaded paying income taxes on the money he stole, concealing his embezzlement from his return preparer. 

The court found that he embezzled $ 1,449,365 from the Catholic Church, and evaded $ 582,453 in individual income taxes that were due and owing to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).  

In addition to the term of prison imposed, U.S. District Court Judge Beth Labson Freeman ordered Nguyen to serve three years of supervised release and to pay a total of $1,883,883 in restitution, including $434,518 to the IRS.  Nguyen previously pleaded guilty to tax evasion and was convicted of bank fraud following a bench trial. 

 

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The IRS has paused selection of new cases for its automated substitute for return (ASFR) program because of resource constraints, the agency confirmed to Tax Analysts September 27, 2017

“Like many operations across the IRS, work on the ASFR program has been affected by resource limitations,” the IRS statement said. “These resource constraints have forced us to make difficult decisions, even on programs that provide clear benefits to tax administration.”

The IRS said it is continuing to work on active ASFR cases and ASFR reconsiderations. “In addition, we are committed to taking many actions in 2018 to improve methods of allocating nonfiler cases across our potential compliance treatment streams, and this includes the ASFR program,” it stated.

The IRS statement partially confirms a September 26 post on the Procedurally Taxing blog reporting that a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration official had announced suspension of the ASFR program. The post was authored by Carlton M. Smith, a retired professor from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

The ASFR program produces automatic tax return filings for individuals whose income reported to the IRS indicates a responsibility to file. The system calculates payments and liabilities, and it produces a letter to the taxpayer with the result.

The IRS said in its statement that the goal of its nonfiler strategy “will be identifying productive nonfiler work that maximizes cases worked while minimizing staff resources and promoting continued filing compliance through programs built to encourage voluntary taxpayer filing and payment.”

Olson told Tax Analysts that she hopes the IRS will use the ASFR case selection pause as an opportunity to address some of the program’s deficiencies.

The Taxpayer Advocate Service declared the ASFR program one of its “Most Serious Problems” in its 2015 annual report to Congress, complaining that the program’s case selection criteria imposed undue burdens on taxpayers and created extra work for the IRS.

Smith said the ASFR program holds taxpayers whose income exceeds a specific threshold to their obligation to file a tax return, but he wondered whether ending the program would save more money than it produces. “I can’t say how many dollars of IRS employee time generates how much revenue out of this program,” he said.

Now once again taxpayers can file the delinquent return(s), then wait 2 years to have them discharged in bankruptcy; as the prohibition against discharging ASFRs in bankruptcy is no longer relevant!

Contact the Tax Lawyers at

Marini & Associates, P.A.

 

 for a FREE Tax Consultation Contact US at

www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com

or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888 882-9243).