The tax community is currently embroiled in a heated debate over proposed IRS guidelines concerning timing provisions, the broad scope of individuals eligible to approve penalties and exemptions related to automated penalty calculations.
At the heart of the controversy lies Section 6751(b), which mandates that the immediate supervisor of a revenue agent must personally provide
Providers of digital asset services would be subjected to tax reporting regulations akin to those governing brokers of securities and analogous financial instruments, as outlined in the inaugural set of proposed regulations delineating protocols for assets like cryptocurrency and nonfungible tokens. These guidelines, disseminated by the Internal Revenue Service on Friday, introduce the requirement for digital asset brokers to submit information returns and payee statements relating to asset sales conducted on behalf of customers during specific transactions, in accordance with Internal Revenue Code Section 6045.
Additionally, the comprehensive 282-page proposal recommended that brokers incorporate gain or loss details and basis information for sales occurring on or after January 1, 2026, under specific circumstances. This provision is designed to equip customers with the requisite information for compiling their tax returns.
The effective date of these regulations is slated for transactions from the preceding year, with enforcement beginning in 2026.
Law360 covered the topic in an article on August 25, 2023 where Gray Reed Partner Joshua Smeltzer was one of the experts interviewed. Board Certified in Tax Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, Joshua uses his experience as a former litigator for the U.S. Department of Justice to defend clients in tax audits, tax appeals, and litigation in Federal District Court, U.S. Tax Court, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and tax issues in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) has resulted in a massive influx of financial information to the IRS over the past 13 years, but the extent of this data remains unknown. Despite expectations of significant revenue, FATCA has not met its financial goals, and the IRS is grappling with the challenge of effectively utilizing the data it has received from partner jurisdictions to enforce tax compliance. Tax Notes covered the topic in an article on August 23, 2023. Gray Reed Partner Joshua Smeltzer was one of the experts interviewed. Board Certified in Tax Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, Joshua uses his experience as a former litigator for the U.S. Department of Justice to defend clients in tax audits, tax appeals, and litigation in Federal District Court, U.S. Tax Court, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and tax issues in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
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Some of the funding will be used to help narrow the field of taxpayers potentially selected for audit, as the agency has been given a mandate to go after wealthy taxpayers, said Joshua D. Smeltzer of Gray Reed. “It will be difficult to target improvements in enforcement directly to FATCA because . . . dissecting enforcement increases on a granular level is just too hard,” Smeltzer said. However, because many more taxpayers in middle- and high-income brackets have worldwide finances, “the efforts by the IRS for FATCA enforcement will increase as well,” he said.
In a recent article by Tax Notes, tax experts expressed their concerns and hopes for the influx of funding granted to the IRS via the Inflation Reduction Act. Gray Reed Partner Joshua Smeltzer was one of the experts interviewed. Board Certified in Tax Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, Joshua uses his experience
The IRS, like the rest of society, has faced several challenges as a result of the pandemic. Some of those challenges are still lingering, such as funding, backlog, lack of guidance and inexperienced auditors. Efforts to fix these problems are underway but will take time. As taxpayer advisors, it’s important to recognize the limitations in
Former Trump Organization Finance Chief Allen Weisselberg pled guilty last week to 15 felonies for what he admitted was a tax fraud scheme he committed while an executive for Trump’s company. Law360 covered the story and quoted Gray Reed Partner Tony Box multiple times. Tony is a former Assistant US Attorney and tax coordinator responsible
Cryptocurrency is no longer a new asset — it’s been around since 2009 — and the number of individuals and businesses who own or use cryptocurrency and NFTs, and the underlying blockchain technology, continues to increase with each passing year. Remarkably, the U.S. and most other countries are still only beginning to regulate the taxation
“The investigative work of 2021 has all the makings of a made for TV movie – embezzlement of funds from a nonprofit, a family fraud ring that stole millions in COVID-relief funds and a $1 billion Ponzi scheme used to buy sports teams and luxury vehicles. But this is real life and I’m grateful to our IRS-CI agents for pursuing these leads and ensuring that the perpetrators were prosecuted for their crimes,” said IRS-CI Chief Jim Lee.
The top 10 IRS-CI cases of 2021, as decided by the IRS-CI, include:
The new Biden administration is clearly signaling that renewable energy will be a key focus of its plan going forward. For example, the Biden administration has set a goal to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind generation capacity by the year 2030. Therefore, it can be expected that tax advisors will be seeing more questions
Lawyers, tax or otherwise, understand that privileged information must be protected to encourage a full and frank dialogue between clients and their attorneys. Tax information, in particular, contains some of the most private information for both individuals and businesses. Gray Reed attorneys Joshua D. Smeltzer, David Gair and Larry Jones recently published an article