The Supreme Court recently granted certiorari in the case Moore v. United States to review a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision affirming application of the “transition tax” under Section 965, enacted as part of the Tax...more
With the release of its FY 2022 revenue proposals, the Biden Administration explains and refines some of the tax priorities raised on the campaign trail. Our International Tax Group reads the tea leaves to find the...more
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 continues to reverberate even unto the end of 2020. Our International Tax Group discusses a letter ruling that may have been a harbinger of proposed regulations to address exceptions to...more
Our International Tax Group examines the high-tax exclusion (HTE) in new final regulations under the global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI) regime and the potentially precarious side effects U.S. shareholders face in...more
Is your inventory sales income U.S. or foreign source? Well, it depends. Our International Tax Group explores the various sourcing rules the IRS has proposed to sort out possible inconsistencies and overlaps caused by the Tax...more
Our International Tax Group parses a recent federal appellate court ruling in the ongoing battle between the IRS and taxpayers over the maximum penalty for willfully failing to file an FBAR to report offshore accounts as...more
At long last, we have the first set of final regulations for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Our International Tax Group celebrates with a look at how the Treasury and IRS have clarified Section 965 and why taxpayers may need to...more
In long-awaited guidance on Section 163(j) post-tax reform, the Treasury and IRS present taxpayers with an expansive definition of “interest,” subjective anti-abuse rules, complex computational instructions, and several...more
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed into law on December 22, 2017, represents the biggest change to U.S. tax law since adoption of the 1986 Code. In addition to rate cuts and various individual and corporate reforms, the Act...more
With tax reform on the horizon, Treasury takes aim at three sets of regulations with clear cross-border implications. Our International Tax Group explains the department’s recommendations to scrap much of Section 385 and...more
On January 18, 2017, the IRS issued temporary and proposed regulations (T.D. 9814) under Section 721(c) to address transfers of appreciated property by U.S. persons to partnerships with related foreign partners. With some...more
On October 13, the Treasury released highly anticipated final and temporary regulations (T.D. 9790) under Section 385,
which authorizes the Treasury to devise regulations to determine when an interest in a corporation is...more
In Liv. Commissioner (T.C. Summ. 2016-49), the taxpayer, appearing pro se, claimed he was entitled to education credits under Section 25A. The Tax Court disagreed, finding that the taxpayer’s U.S. residency start date made...more
The Tax Court, in American Metallurgical Coal Co., TC Memo 2016-139, recently held that financing of a sale of partnership interests by a foreign seller to a U.S. buyer was not debt, but equity. The court found that the...more
In recent Notice 2016-42, the IRS has proposed a new qualified intermediary (QI) agreement. The current QI agreement, set forth in Rev. Proc. 2014-39 (“the 2014 QI agreement”), expires December 31, 2016. The IRS expects to...more
Action 13 of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) final base erosion and profit-shifting (BEPS) report suggested the adoption of a standardized mechanism for transfer-pricing reporting. Per the...more
Generally, a disregarded entity is not subject to U.S. tax or information reporting, so the IRS is limited to gleaning information from tax filings by an entity’s owner. But foreign owners of disregarded entities often do not...more
On April 4, the Treasury released temporary regulations to attack (and prevent) inversions. Aimed at transactions designed to avoid the purposes of Sections 7874 and 367 and certain post-inversion avoidance transactions, the...more
The Treasury recently released a revised U.S. Model Income Tax Convention (the “2016 Model”), the U.S. starting point for bilateral treaty negotiation, last updated a decade ago. In May 2015, the Treasury circulated several...more
In late January, the Tax Court handed another loss to Gerd Topsnik (Topsnik v. Comm’r, Jan. 20, 2016). Topsnik last encountered the Tax Court in a 2014 case, in which he unsuccessfully argued that “informally” abandoning his...more
The Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 (the “PATH Act”), signed December 18, 2015, introduces significant changes to the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act (FIRPTA), particularly concerning REITs. ...more
On December 18, President Obama signed the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 (the “PATH Act”). Despite the new law’s name, a number of its provisions affect foreign investors. The PATH Act introduces several...more
There is no love lost between the U.S. Treasury and U.S. companies seeking offshore tax homes. Absent congressional action to stem the inversion tide, the Treasury and IRS are left to flex their regulatory and administrative...more
Citing aggressive taxpayer positions, recently proposed regulations do away with the foreign goodwill exception to gain or income recognition for outbound transfers under Section 367. The rules also restrict the type of...more
LTR 201542004 at first seems to involve a standard spinoff for the purpose of pursuing a reverse Morris Trust combination of Controlled with a Merger Partner, with the “significant issue” for ruling being a proposed swap of...more