Leveraged partnerships have been one of the few remaining techniques to dispose of unwanted businesses. A recent Tax Court decision has raised questions about the continued viability of this technique. Even more disturbing is the court’s view of the role of opinions in corporate business transactions.
The tax law often looks to the economic substance of [...]

On April 19, 2010, the IRS released a draft of Schedule UTP, Uncertain Tax Position Statement. The Schedule is to be included with the tax returns of corporations with assets equal to or greater than $10 million and which issued an audited financial statement for the tax year.
The Schedule is deceptively simple. For the current [...]

Businesspeople generally like clear answers to simple questions. That is why they tend to have little patience for tax law, where the answer is often “It depends….”

For example, the question “Are severance payments subject to FICA taxes?” ought to have a simple “Yes” or “No” answer. Unfortunately, as two recent court decisions illustrate, the answer [...]