On December 20, 2019, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) issued Notice 2019-1, extending the filing deadline for the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, FinCEN Form 114 (FBAR), for certain individuals with signature or other authority over (but no financial interest in) employer-owned foreign financial accounts to

The first official guidance on the taxation of cryptocurrency transactions in more than five years has been issued.

The guidance includes both a Revenue Ruling (Rev. Rul. 2019-24, 2019-44 I.R.B. 1) and answers to Frequently Asked Questions on Virtual Currency Transactions (the “FAQs,” together with Revenue Ruling 2019-24, the “Guidance”) was issued on October 9, 2019 by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”).  The Guidance provides much sought information concerning the tax consequences of cryptocurrency “hard forks” as well as acceptable methods of determining tax basis for cryptocurrency transactions.  The Guidance also reasserts the IRS’s position, announced in Notice 2014-21, 2014-16 I.R.B. 938, that cryptocurrency is “property” for U.S. federal income tax purposes and provides information on how the rules generally applicable to transactions in property apply in the cryptocurrency context.  However, important questions remain unanswered.  It remains to be seen whether more definitive regulatory or administrative guidance is forthcoming.

The Guidance comes amidst an ongoing campaign by the IRS to increase taxpayer compliance with tax and information reporting obligations in connection with cryptocurrency transactions.  In 2017, a U.S. district court ordered a prominent cryptocurrency exchange platform to turn over information pertaining to thousands of account holders and millions of transactions to the IRS as part of its investigation into suspected widespread underreporting of income related to cryptocurrency transactions.  Earlier this year, the IRS sent more than 10,000 “educational letters” to taxpayers identified as having virtual currency accounts, alerting them to their tax and information reporting obligations and, in certain cases, instructing them to respond with appropriate information or face possible examination.  Schedule 1 of the draft Form 1040 for 2019, released by the IRS shortly after publishing the Guidance, would require taxpayers to indicate whether they received, sold, sent, exchanged, or otherwise acquired virtual currency at any time during 2019.[1]

Taxpayers who own or transact in cryptocurrency or other virtual currency should consider carefully any tax and information reporting obligations they might have.  Please contact the authors of this post or your usual Proskauer tax contact to discuss any aspect of the Guidance.  Read the following post for background and a detailed discussion of the Guidance.

I.                   Introduction.

On March 4, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) and the Department of the Treasury (the “Treasury”) released proposed regulations (the “Proposed Regulations”) regarding the deduction for “foreign-derived intangible income” (“FDII”) under section 250 of the Internal Revenue Code.[1] Section 250 was enacted in 2017 as part of the tax reform act.[2] Very generally, section 250 provides domestic corporations with a reduced effective 13.125% tax rate on FDII, which is a formulary proxy for a domestic corporation’s intangible income attributable to foreign sales and services.[3] The reduced tax rate for FDII is intended to encourage U.S. multinationals to retain intellectual property in the United States rather than transfer it to a foreign subsidiary where it could generate global intangible low-taxed income (“GILTI”), which is taxable at a 10.5% rate. The Proposed Regulations also would permit individuals who make a section 962 election with respect to their controlled foreign corporation (“CFCs”) to benefit from the reduced 13.125% rate on the GILTI earned by those CFCs.

The Proposed Regulations are generally effective for taxable years ending on or after March 4, 2019.

This post provides both background to and a summary of some of the most important aspects of the Proposed Regulations. For more information, please contact any of the Proskauer tax lawyers listed on this post or your regular Proskauer contact.

On January 18, 2019, the U.S. Department of Treasury (“Treasury”) and the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) released final regulations (the “Final Regulations”) regarding the “passthrough deduction” for qualified trade or business income under section 199A of the Internal Revenue Code.[1] The Final Regulations modify proposed regulations (the “Proposed Regulations”) that were released in August 2018. The Final Regulations apply to tax years ending after February 8, 2019, but taxpayers may rely on the Proposed Regulations for taxable years ending in calendar year 2018.

Section 199A was enacted in 2017 as part of the tax reform act.[2] Generally, section 199A provides a deduction (the “passthrough deduction”) of up to 20% for individuals and certain trusts and estates of certain of the income from certain trades or businesses that are operated as a sole proprietorship, or through certain passthrough entities. The passthrough deduction provides a maximum effective rate of 29.6%.

This post provides background and summarizes some of the most important changes from the Proposed Regulations to the Final Regulations. For more information, please contact any of the Proskauer tax lawyers listed on this post or your regular Proskauer contact.

On December 4, 2018, FinCEN issued Notice 2018-1, extending the filing deadline for the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, FinCEN Form 114 (FBAR), for certain individuals with signature or other authority over (but no financial interest in) employer-owned foreign financial accounts to April 15, 2020. FinCEN has provided similar extensions over the previous six years.[1] This new extension applies to reporters with signatory authority during the 2018 calendar year and to those individuals whose reporting deadline was extended under prior notices (such as certain employees or officers of investment advisers registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) who have signature authority over, but no financial interest in, certain foreign financial accounts).[2] All other filers must still file by April 15, 2019, although FinCEN will grant an automatic extension until October 15, 2019.

On January 18, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued final regulations (the “Final Regulations”) on the “pass through” deduction under section 199A[1] of the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”). Very generally, section 199A provides individuals with a deduction of up to 20% of income from a domestic “trade or business” operated as a sole proprietorship or through a partnership, S corporation, trust, or estate. The Final Regulations define trade or business as “a trade or business under section 162, other than the trade or business of performing services as an employee.”[2]

Prior to the issuance of the Final Regulations, taxpayer commenters expressed uncertainty as to whether a rental business qualified as a trade or business under section 199A—based on a long-standing uncertainty as to whether, and to what extent, a rental real estate business was a trade or business for purposes of section 162.

To provide some certainty for taxpayers potentially entitled to the pass-through deduction, the IRS released Notice 2019-07 (the “Notice”) in conjunction with the Final Regulations. The Notice proposes a safe harbor under which taxpayers (including partnerships and S corporations owned by at least one individual, estate, or trust) may treat a “rental real estate enterprise” as a trade or business solely for the purposes of the section 199A deduction. Because the Notice would provide a safe harbor—and not a substantive rule—failure to meet the tests set forth in the Notice does not necessarily mean a rental real estate business is ineligible for the section 199A deduction. If the Notice standards are not met, then the general test under section 162 would need to be met for such a business.[3] However, in certain other contexts, tax professionals and the IRS have viewed safe harbors as establishing the bounds of the substantive law; it remains to be seen whether taxpayers will claim the pass-through deduction for real estate leasing activities that fail to satisfy the safe harbor.

On December 20, 2018, the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) and the Department of the Treasury (the “Treasury”) released proposed “anti-hybrid” regulations (the “Proposed Regulations”) under sections 267A, 245A(e), and 1503(d) of the Internal Revenue Code.[1] Sections 267A and 245A(e) were enacted in 2017 as part of the tax reform act.[2] Very generally, these sections deny U.S. tax deductions associated with a financial instrument, transaction, or entity that is treated differently under the tax laws of the United States and the tax laws of another country. Such an instrument, transaction, or entity is referred to as a “hybrid”; and sections 267A and 245A(e) are referred to as “anti-hybrid” provisions. Hybrids, by exploiting the differences between tax laws, can be used to claim tax benefits in multiple countries or achieve “double nontaxation”.

The Proposed Regulations will generally be retroactively effective from January 1, 2018 if they are finalized by June 22, 2019.[3] If they are not finalized by that date, then they will be effective as of December 20, 2018. The deadline for comments on the Proposed Regulations is February 26, 2019.[4]

This post provides both a summary and detailed explanation of some of the most important aspects of the Proposed Regulations. For more information, please contact any of the Proskauer tax lawyers listed on this post or your regular Proskauer contact. 

On December 13, 2018, the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) and the Department of the Treasury (the “Treasury”) released proposed regulations (the “Proposed Regulations”) with respect to the “base erosion and anti-abuse tax” (the “BEAT”) under section 59A of the Internal Revenue Code.[1]

The BEAT was enacted in 2017 as part of the tax reform act.[2] The BEAT is an additional tax that has the effect of a minimum tax on certain large U.S. corporations that make deductible payments to foreign related parties. The BEAT is designed to prevent these U.S. corporations from using deductible payments to reduce (or “base erode”) their corporate tax liability.

The Proposed Regulations clarify which taxpayers are subject to the BEAT and how the BEAT rules apply. The Proposed Regulations are generally effective for taxable years after December 31, 2017, and a taxpayer may rely on them before they are finalized so long as the taxpayer applies them consistently for all taxable years before they are finalized.

This post provides background and summarizes some of the most important aspects of the Proposed Regulations. For more information, please contact any of the Proskauer tax lawyers listed on this post or your regular Proskauer contact.

In a landmark decision changing course on decades of precedent, the United States Supreme Court decided on June 21, 2018 South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., et al. Justice Kennedy, writing for the Court’s 5-4 majority, expressly overruled the physical presence rule established over fifty years ago in Bellas Hess