Taxes

A recent case illustrates the importance of strictly complying with the substantiation requirements (including the contemporaneous written acknowledgement requirement) for a charitable contribution deduction under § 170. In the case, the taxpayer donated to a museum items from a collection of Native American jewelry and artifacts. As part of that donation, the taxpayer and the

The 2022 proxy season is underway, and it is chaotic. At Shell PLC’s recent annual general meeting, climate protestors bombarded the room, reportedly gluing themselves to seats, forcing company Chair Andrew Mackenzie to delay the meeting until they were all cleared out. At Twitter, the specter of Elon Musk’s pending $44 billion takeover hung over

Today’s Social Security column addresses questions about how and when spousal benefits can be available for each spouse in turn, drawing divorced spousal benefits with multiple exes and when first payments can be expected. Larry Kotlikoff is a Professor of Economics at Boston University and the founder and president of Economic Security Planning, Inc. See

The Supreme Court does not muck around with Tax Court decisions very much. So Boechler, P.C v, Commissioner of Internal Revenue has a small but passionate group of people excited. It was a unanimous opinion delivered by Amy Coney Barrett. She managed to work in a hat tip to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whom

A new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shows that the amount of money spent by the federal government each year to service our national debt is on track to reach unprecedented highs within the next 10 years. These findings should give Congressional Democrats renewed urgency to pass a reconciliation bill that reduces federal

The federal government may once again have an opportunity to learn a painful lesson about the price of increasing debt and rising interest rates in an uncertain economy. The Congressional Budget Office, in its just-issued Budget and Economic Outlook, forecasts a hair-raising increase in federal borrowing costs over the next decade. CBO estimates that net

Recent testimony in the U.S. Tax Court’s Facebook v. Commissioner trial highlighted a problem with the U.S. cost-sharing regulations, which establish valuation rules for a type of related-party intangible property transfer that has long been popular among U.S. tech giants. The issue isn’t with the underlying concepts adopted by the regs, which are solidly grounded

The IRS announced today that it has provided a much requested update to their “Where’s My Refund?” tool. The update now allows taxpayers to check the status of the current tax year’s refund and the two previous years. Before the update taxpayers could only check the status of their current year refund and once the

“Behold the Florida SLAT, Which can now provide that, If your spouse dies first, The contributor spouse can be a beneficiary, to make the death less worse. But will the contributor spouse with a heartfelt shrug, Be more inclined to pull the beneficiary’s plug? This and more, We below explore.” On May 10th, Governor Ron

Most legal settlements are taxable, even for a devastating fire loss. That grim fact can be an unpleasant surprise to fire victims, and seems particularly unfair. There are federal and California tax bills pending that if passed, could make certain fire lawsuit recoveries nontaxable. It is not clear how either one of these bills will