Legal Updates & Commentary for Tax & Estate Planning
Don’t miss Part I, here!
“I appreciate your eagerness,” said the adviser. “You can just imagine how I feel every morning when I read through the latest tax news. It takes a Herculean effort to contain myself.”
“OMG,” he’s crazy, “what was my dad thinking when he retained this guy?!”
“I see the look…
The employee-owner of a corporate business will sometimes ask his or her tax adviser, “How much can I pay myself out of my corporation?”
The astute tax adviser may respond, “First of all, you are not paying yourself. The corporation is a separate entity from you, its shareholder. That being said, the corporation can pay…
There is nothing like an old proverb to remind you of the obvious. Unfortunately, too many taxpayers need to be reminded all too often. It’s one thing when the reminder comes from the taxpayer’s own advisers – at that point, the taxpayer may still have an opportunity to “correct” his or her actions. It is…
Own your own business, decide your own salary… right?
Wrong.
The Tax Court recently upheld corporate tax deficiencies and accuracy-related penalties assessed by the IRS after it disallowed as a business expense deduction half of $2 million in bonuses paid by an eye care center (the “Center”) to its sole shareholder. The sole shareholder, who…
With this post, we continue to examine transactions between the closely-held business and its owners. As we saw last week, special scrutiny is given in situations where a business is controlled by the individual with whom it engages in a transaction because there is a lack of arm’s-length bargaining. That is certainly the case…
Transactions between a closely held business and its owners will generally be subject to heightened scrutiny by a taxing authority, and the labels attached to such transactions by the parties have limited significance unless they are supported by objective evidence. Thus, arrangements that purport to provide for the payment of compensation, dividends, rent, interest, etc.,…
In the recent case Thousand Oaks Residential Care Home I, Inc. v. Commissioner, the Tax Court considered whether a corporation’s compensation packages for its owner-employees were unreasonable and thus disallowable as deductions. The facts can be summarized as follows: in 1973, Petitioners “Mr. and Mrs. F.” purchased a struggling corporation called Thousand Oaks Residential…
