Insights

A recent Tax Court case, Pool v. Commissioner, is the first court opinion in many years describing the limits of a popular capital gain tax planning technique used by real estate investors and developers. Some real estate project legal structures enable investors to recognize a mix of long-term capital gain and…

How to Keep Your Options Open Almost everyone reading this article has by now received advice from their financial and tax advisors to accelerate sales of assets with built-in gains into the 2012 calendar year, to lock in the current 15% federal long-term capital gain tax rate. This is because,…

Time is running out to retroactively create a 2009 tax loss eligible to be carried back up to five years for a refund of federal income tax paid in the prior years. This past November, Congress amended the Internal Revenue Code to allow 2009 business tax losses to be carried…

There is a tendency to stop thinking about tax planning during recessions. After all, during recessions many individuals and businesses do not pay income tax because they do not have income. In many cases, however, a loss can be carried back to a prior year when the individual or business…

Losing property to a creditor can be painful. Paying income tax as a result of such loss adds insult to the injury. Fortunately, foreclosures and short sales do not always create income tax obligations. Even when tax is otherwise due, it is sometimes possible to reduce the tax owed through…