I. Introduction
With clear Republican victories in the White House and the Senate, and a very slim majority for either side in the House of Representatives, we can expect tax legislation in the coming year. It is expected that the President elect will likely seek to enact his economic agenda
The IRS has announced a new audit campaign targeted at the use of private aircraft, a/k/a “corporate jets”. This has been an intensifying area of focus by the IRS over the last few years as a result of recently-increased tax benefits for private aircraft. Clients who use airplanes for business
The IRS and Senator Warren Raise Concerns about Lodging and Health Care REITs
I. Introduction
On September 3, 2024, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent a letter to the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) urging it to “increase enforcement scrutiny of REITs, especially large health and hospitality REITs that may be
On June 17, 2024, the IRS announced the formation of a dedicated group in the Office of Chief Counsel specifically focused on developing guidance on partnerships, which is expected to work with a new “passthrough working group” being established in the Large Business and International Division of the IRS. At the same time, Treasury and the IRS launched an attack on a specific partnership strategy involving so-called “basis bump” or “basis shifting” transactions involving related parties through a combination of guidance challenging the substance of such arrangements and declaring such arrangements to be “transactions of interest” that are subject to the strict disclosure requirements of the “reportable transaction” rules.1
On June 20, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the so called mandatory repatriation tax under Internal Revenue Code Section 965 (“MRT”) is constitutional.
Justice Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion. Justice Thomas (joined by Justice Gorsuch) dissented. Justice Barrett (joined by Justice Alito) and Justice Jackson delivered separate
On April 24, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”) and the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) issued final regulations[1] on the definition of “domestically controlled” real estate investment trusts (“REITs”) (the “Final Regulations”). The Final Regulations retain
In 2021, the Corporate Transparency Act was enacted into U.S. federal law as part of a multinational effort to rein in the use of entities to mask illegal activity, including proposed rules (effective January 1, 2024) requiring certain types of entities to file a report identifying the entity’s beneficial owners
Introduction
Section 1402(a)(13) of the Internal Revenue Code provides that the distributive share of “limited partners, as such” from a partnership is not subject to self-employment tax.[1] Managers of private equity and hedge funds are routinely structured as limited partnerships to exclude management and incentive fees from self-employment
On July 11, 2023, the Senate Finance Committee released an open letter to the Digital Asset Community asking a variety of questions in connection with possible future legislation. Public comments must be emailed to the Senate Finance Committee staff at responses@finance.senate.gov by September 8, 2023. The questions are related to the following nine general areas.
The balance of this blog describes each area, lists each question, and discusses certain of them.
On July 26, 2023, Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the Ending Tax Breaks for Massive Sovereign Wealth Funds Act (the “bill”), which would deny the benefits of section 892 of the Internal Revenue Code[1] to sovereign wealth funds whose foreign government holds more than $100 billion of investable assets,[2] and either (i) is not a party to a free trade agreement or income tax treaty in effect with the United States or (ii) is North Korea, China, Russia, or Iran.[3] If the bill is passed, it would deny the benefits of section 892 to several of the largest sovereign wealth funds by assets.
Section 892 generally exempts foreign governments (including “integral parts”[4] of foreign governments and foreign governments’ sovereign wealth funds and other “controlled entities”[5]) from U.S. federal income tax on income received from investments in U.S. stocks, bonds, and other securities, financial instruments held in the execution of governmental financial or monetary policy, and interest on deposits in banks in the United States. However, section 892 does not exempt from U.S. federal income tax any income that is derived from the conduct of a “commercial activity”,[6] income received by a “controlled commercial entity” or received (directly or indirectly) from a “controlled commercial entity”,[7] and income derived from the disposition of any interest in a controlled commercial entity.
The bill would generally apply to income received after December 31, 2023. However, the bill contains three grandfather provisions that would apply until 2026.
First, any investment made before the enactment of the bill would be grandfathered until 2026.