Insights

Most capital asset classification cases involve the IRS denying lower-tax-rate capital gain treatment. Many of these cases turn on whether a taxpayer’s activities relating to the asset were minor enough to avoid becoming an active “business” rather than a more passive activity. A recent case turned that pattern on its…

The Supreme Court’s decision authorizing nationwide same-sex marriage further extends marital rights. But some extraordinarily-tax-motivated same-sex couples may make the same choice that some opposite-sex couples have made for years, to avoid marriage to take advantage of tax planning opportunities married couples cannot. Marriage brings with it many tax benefits,…

Sometimes it’s what you say, not what you do, that matters. A taxpayer learned that the hard way in a recent United States Tax Court decision. There are numerous court decisions in which a taxpayer acquired property, incurred “soft costs” to entitle the property for future development, and then recognized capital gain…

Could it be better to abandon a bad investment and receive nothing in return, than to sell it and receive something in return? Sometimes the answer is “yes,” according to a recent federal appellate court decision. The reason is that you can take an ordinary business tax loss from abandonment…

Reversing the US Tax Court, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently held that a real estate developer recognized long-term capital gain when he sold contractual purchase rights in real estate, even though the developer previously intended to develop and resell the underlying real estate as condominiums. The…