Federal

  • March 24, 2025

    IRS Abused Its Power In Levy Suit, Justices Told

    A New Jersey woman should be allowed to continue challenging her tax debt in a property seizure hearing after the IRS withheld her tax refunds and dropped its levy pursuit, business and tax groups told the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, saying the agency had abused its power.

  • March 24, 2025

    These 3 GOP Budget Questions Will Shape TCJA Talks

    As Congress barrels toward negotiations over renewing expiring provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Republican lawmakers are faced with several major budgetary decisions that will govern which proposals can be included in the bill they send to President Donald Trump's desk.

  • March 24, 2025

    IRS Underreported Direct File Costs By $8.8M, TIGTA Says

    The Internal Revenue Service's reported $24.6 million costs for the Direct File pilot program didn't include an estimated $8.8 million incurred by the Office of Management and Budget and the agency's credential service provider, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

  • March 24, 2025

    McDermott Hires Skadden Partner To Lead London Tax Office

    McDermott Will & Emery LLP announced Monday that it has chosen a former Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP partner to serve as the new leader of the firm's U.K. tax office in London.

  • March 24, 2025

    Burden Of Proof Is IRS' For $2.3M Bill, Kyocera Tells Tax Court

    The Internal Revenue Service should bear the burden of proof in making adjustments to an amended return filed by electronics-maker Kyocera, the company argued as it urged the U.S. Tax Court to review an IRS notice saying the company owes $2.3 million for 2018.

  • March 24, 2025

    Trump Asks High Court To Halt Fed. Workers' Reinstatement

    The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to pause a California federal court order reinstating tens of thousands of probationary federal workers who were fired from six agencies, arguing the band of nonprofit groups that obtained the order have no standing to challenge the firings.

  • March 24, 2025

    FinCEN Exempts US Businesses From Disclosure Rules

    The U.S. Department of the Treasury's financial crimes unit issued interim final rules that exempt domestic businesses from contested reporting regulations, which the department had previously signaled it would narrow to include only foreign companies registered stateside.

  • March 24, 2025

    Justices Won't Hear Peanut Truck Co.'s Excise Tax Case

    The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will not hear a Georgia company's case arguing the IRS wrongly denied it an excise tax exemption for the special trucks it makes for peanut farming, letting stand an Eleventh Circuit ruling.

  • March 22, 2025

    Up Next At High Court: Non-Delegation & Clean Air Fights

    The U.S. Supreme Court will return to the bench Monday to hear arguments in a dispute that could revive a long-dormant separation of powers principle and trigger a regulatory power shift. 

  • March 21, 2025

    Fla. Tax Preparer Sentenced To Prison For $20M Fraud

    A Miami-area tax preparer was sentenced to nearly five years in prison Friday after admitting to filing thousands of individual tax returns wrongly claiming energy credits, resulting in a $20 million loss for the Internal Revenue Service, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida.

  • March 21, 2025

    'Not Mistake-Proof': College Can Try To Recoup Tax Penalties

    A community college can proceed with its suit seeking a refund of tax penalties for failing to file wage statements for nearly all its employees, a Michigan federal judge ruled Friday, saying the school didn't have to meet a "mistake-proof" standard to argue it should be excused from the fines.

  • March 21, 2025

    Groups Can Probe Treasury's Cooperation With DOGE

    A Washington, D.C., federal judge let two unions and a retirees group look into any steps the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury took to give the Department of Government Efficiency access to Treasury's computer systems, saying she needs the information to evaluate the action's lawfulness.

  • March 21, 2025

    Boutique Firm Accuses IRS Of Illegally Enforcing Payroll Tax

    A consumer-protection boutique law firm accused the IRS of illegally enforcing payroll taxes while delaying the processing of pandemic-era employee retention tax credits, which the firm claimed would have helped with compliance, according to a complaint in Connecticut federal court.

  • March 21, 2025

    Ex-UBS North America CEO Agrees To $4.9M FBAR Judgment

    The former North American CEO for Swiss bank UBS on Friday agreed to a $4.9 million judgment to end claims that he failed to file timely or accurate foreign bank account reports with the Internal Revenue Service between 2003 and 2013.

  • March 21, 2025

    Taxation With Representation: Cravath, Paul Weiss, Cooley

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, Google acquires Wiz, QXO Inc. acquires Beacon Roofing Supply, and the Boston Celtics are bought by a group led by private equity firm co-founder William Chisholm.

  • March 21, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Backs Actavis' $12M Patent Suit Cost Deduction

    Drugmaker Actavis can take a $12 million tax deduction for money it spent fending off lawsuits while securing approval to sell generic birth control and other drugs, the Federal Circuit ruled Friday, affirming the U.S. Court of Federal Claims' decision that the costs were deductible as ordinary business expenses.

  • March 20, 2025

    IRS SALT Cap Workaround Rule Unlawful, 2nd Circ. Told

    The Internal Revenue Service unlawfully created a rule prohibiting workarounds to the federal cap on state and local tax deductions, a New Jersey deputy attorney general told a Second Circuit panel Thursday, asking the appellate judges to overturn a lower court ruling that upheld the rule.

  • March 20, 2025

    Frost Brown Adds Former Houston City Atty To Finance Team

    Frost Brown Todd LLP announced that it has hired an attorney from the ranks of Houston's city government to strengthen its public finance group, adding his expertise in state and local government operations, taxation and economic development.

  • March 20, 2025

    Texas Law Firm Fights Denial Of Captive Insurance Deduction

    A Texas law firm asked the U.S. Tax Court to find that the IRS improperly denied it a $621,000 deduction for payments it made to a captive insurance company, saying the agency wrongly accused the firm of participating in an abusive insurance arrangement.

  • March 20, 2025

    PwC, Deloitte, KPMG Back Coke In $2.7B Dispute In 11th Circ.

    Three major accounting firms have asked the Eleventh Circuit to reverse a U.S. Tax Court decision affirming the IRS' change to Coca-Cola's intercompany pricing, which led to a $2.7 billion tax bill, arguing the agency's conduct was unsupported and unjustified.  

  • March 20, 2025

    90% Of Crypto Sellers Conceal Income, Danish Data Shows

    Danish Tax Agency data shows more than 90% of cryptocurrency sellers don't report that income and that many have shifted to foreign platforms to avoid domestic reporting rules, the EU Tax Observatory said in a working paper, suggesting international coordination is essential to tax crypto effectively.

  • March 20, 2025

    Sisters Say Bad Advice Led To Skipped $14M Estate Tax Filing

    Two sisters overseeing their brother's $13.7 million estate told a Rhode Island district court that they shouldn't have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax penalties for missing the deadline to file an estate tax return because they were reasonably relying on advice from their attorney.

  • March 19, 2025

    IRS Hunter Biden Whistleblower Named Deputy Criminal Chief

    An Internal Revenue Service special agent who accused the U.S. Department of Justice of mishandling an investigation into former President Joe Biden's son has been named deputy chief in the IRS Criminal Investigation division, the agency said Wednesday.

  • March 19, 2025

    Coke's $2.7B Tax Bill Arbitrary, Business Groups Tell 11th Circ.

    Three industry groups asked the Eleventh Circuit to reverse a U.S. Tax Court decision affirming that the Internal Revenue Service could raise Coca-Cola's taxes by $2.7 billion, saying in friend-of-the-court briefs that the IRS acted arbitrarily in hiking the Atlanta-based beverage giant's tax liability.

  • March 19, 2025

    Tax Court Upholds Penalty On Early Retirement Withdrawal

    A Florida man should have included his early withdrawal of roughly $57,000 from his retirement account in that year's tax return, the U.S. Tax Court said Wednesday, also agreeing that the agency was correct to assess an accuracy-related penalty against him.

Expert Analysis

  • After A Brief Hiccup, The 'Rocket Docket' Soars Back To No. 1

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    The Eastern District of Virginia’s precipitous 2022 fall from its storied rocket docket status appears to have been a temporary aberration, as recent statistics reveal that the court is once again back on top as the fastest federal civil trial court in the nation, says Robert Tata at Hunton.

  • Recruitment Trends In Emerging Law Firm Frontiers

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    BigLaw firms are facing local recruitment challenges as they increasingly establish offices in cities outside of the major legal hubs, requiring them to weigh various strategies for attracting talent that present different risks and benefits, says Tom Hanlon at Buchanan Law.

  • What DOL Fiduciary Rule Means For Private Fund Managers

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    Attorneys at Ropes & Gray discuss how the U.S. Department of Labor's recently released final fiduciary rule, which revises the agency's 1975 regulation, could potentially cause private fund managers' current marketing practices and communications to be considered fiduciary advice, and therefore subject them to strict prohibitions.

  • Money, Money, Money: Limiting White Collar Wealth Evidence

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    As courts increasingly recognize that allowing unfettered evidence of wealth could prejudice a jury against a defendant, white collar defense counsel should consider several avenues for excluding visual evidence of a lavish lifestyle at trial, says Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.

  • How Associates Can Build A Professional Image

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    As hybrid work arrangements become the norm in the legal industry, early-career attorneys must be proactive in building and maintaining a professional presence in both physical and digital settings, ensuring that their image aligns with their long-term career goals, say Lana Manganiello at Equinox Strategy Partners and Estelle Winsett at Estelle Winsett Professional Image Consulting.

  • Navigating New Safe Harbor For Domestic Content Tax Credits

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    The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s recent notice simplifying domestic content calculations for certain solar, onshore wind and battery storage projects, which directly acknowledges the difficulty for taxpayers in gathering data to support a domestic content analysis, should make it easier to qualify additional domestic content bonus tax credits, say attorneys at A&O Shearman.

  • Firms Must Rethink How They Train New Lawyers In AI Age

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    As law firms begin to use generative artificial intelligence to complete lower-level legal tasks, they’ll need to consider new ways to train summer associates and early-career attorneys, keeping in mind the five stages of skill acquisition, says Liisa Thomas at Sheppard Mullin.

  • 'Energy Communities' Update May Clarify Tax Credit Eligibility

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    A recent IRS notice that includes updated lists of locations where clean energy projects can qualify for additional tax credits — based 2023 unemployment data and placed-in-service dates — should help provide clarity regarding project eligibility that sponsors and developers need, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.

  • Think Like A Lawyer: Always Be Closing

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    When a lawyer presents their case with the right propulsive structure throughout trial, there is little need for further argument after the close of evidence — and in fact, rehashing it all may test jurors’ patience — so attorneys should consider other strategies for closing arguments, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.

  • Litigation Inspiration: Attys Can Be Heroic Like Olympians

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    Although litigation won’t earn anyone an Olympic medal in Paris this summer, it can be worthy of the same lasting honor if attorneys exercise focused restraint — seeking both their clients’ interests and those of the court — instead of merely pursuing every advantage short of sanctionable conduct, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • Lean Into The 'Great Restoration' To Retain Legal Talent

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    As the “great resignation,” in which employees voluntarily left their jobs in droves, has largely dissipated, legal employers should now work toward the idea of a “great restoration,” adopting strategies to effectively hire, onboard and retain top legal talent, says Molly McGrath at Hiring & Empowering Solutions.

  • How Cannabis Rescheduling May Alter Paraphernalia Imports

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    The Biden administration's recent proposal to loosen federal restrictions on marijuana use raises questions about how U.S. Customs and Border Protection enforcement policies may shift when it comes to enforcing a separate federal ban on marijuana accessory imports, says R. Kevin Williams at Clark Hill.

  • NCAA Settlement May End The NIL Model As We Know It

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    The recent House v. NCAA settlement in California federal court, in which the NCAA agreed to allow schools to directly pay March Madness television revenue to their athletes, may send outside name, image and likeness collectives in-house, says Mike Ingersoll at Womble Bond.

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