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
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Supreme Court Rules on Moore v. U.S. – Upholds Mandatory Repatriation Tax
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…
Final Regulations on Domestically Controlled REITs
- Introduction
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…
Change to non-domicile tax regime forms part of UK Spring Budget 2024
As part of the UK’s Spring Budget 2024, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, has announced the abolition of the remittance basis for income tax and capital gains tax for non-UK domiciled, UK resident individuals (the “Non-Dom Regime”) with effect from 6 April 2025. It is proposed…
CTA – The Large Operating Company Exemption – Not Everybody Can Be A “Big BOI”
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…
Section 1446(f) Final Regulations: Key Changes to Guidance on Non-Publicly Traded Partnership Interest Transfers by Non-U.S. Persons
On October 7, 2020, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) and Treasury Department released final regulations[1] providing guidance on the rules imposing withholding and reporting requirements under the Code[2] on dispositions of certain partnership interests by non-U.S. persons (the “Final Regulations”). The Final Regulations expand and modify proposed regulations[3] that were published on May 13, 2019 (the “Proposed Regulations”), and which we described in a prior Tax Talks post.[4] Unless otherwise specified, this post focuses on the differences between the Proposed Regulations and the Final Regulations affecting transfers of interests in non-publicly traded partnerships.
Enacted as part of the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” Section 1446(f) generally requires a transferee, in connection with the disposition of a partnership interest by a non-U.S. person, to withhold and remit ten percent of the “amount realized” by the transferor, if any portion of any gain realized by the transferor on the disposition would be treated under Section 864(c)(8) as effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business in the United States (“Section 1446(f) Withholding”).[5]
Prior to issuing the Proposed Regulations, the IRS had issued Notice 2018-08 and Notice 2018-29 to provide interim guidance with respect to Section 1446(f) Withholding.
Upper Tribunal Rules in Favour of Taxpayer in Tax Residence Case
By Robert E. Gaut on
Development Securities plc and others v HMRC [2019] UKUT 169 (TCC)
The Original Judgment
As we reported in our August 2017 UK Tax Round-Up [https://www.proskauer.com/newsletter/uk-tax-round-up-august-2017], the UK’s First Tier Tribunal (“FTT”) found against the taxpayer in the Development Securities case, and ruled that certain Jersey-incorporated companies were, in…
IRS Issues Taxpayer Advisory on Prepayment of 2018 Property Taxes
The IRS announced yesterday, in IR 2017-210 (the “Advisory”), that state property taxes must be “assessed” in 2017 in order for such taxes to be prepaid in calendar year 2017 and therefore deductible in 2017. The Advisory says that state or local law determines whether and when a property tax…
IRS Eliminates Signatures on Section 754 Elections, Offering Tax Regulatory Reform Preview (and its Complexity?)
By Martin T. Hamilton on
In a notice of proposed rulemaking issued on October 11, 2017 (the “NPRM”), the U.S. Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”) and the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) proposed an amendment to existing regulations (the “Proposed Regulation”) under Section 754 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”). The…
Tax Planning is Crucial to Achieve Potential Spin-Off Benefits
By Annie Kim, Martin T. Hamilton & Stuart Rosow on
Today, the Wall Street Journal considers again, on its front page above the fold, the potential benefits of corporate spin-off transactions (https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-reason-investors-love-spinoffs-juicier-returns-1507681008 (subscription required)). The Journal article notes that the S&P Spin-Off Index has outperformed the S&P 500 Index by nearly 190 percentage points in the last ten years.…