Federal
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March 28, 2025
Weekly Internal Revenue Bulletin
The Internal Revenue Service's weekly bulletin, issued Friday, included the updated corporate monthly yield bond curve.
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March 27, 2025
LA Investor Loses Bid To Recoup Damages From IRS Seizure
A Los Angeles investor lost a bid in California federal court Thursday to recoup more than $500,000 in damages that, he said, stemmed from the IRS' unlawful seizure of his assets to pay off a $7.2 million late-filing penalty.
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March 27, 2025
Pfizer Tops Pharma Tax Avoidance, Senate Dems Say
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer had no taxable profits in its largest market, the U.S., after booking all its income in jurisdictions including Puerto Rico, Singapore and Ireland, according to a Senate Finance Committee report prepared by panel Democrats that was released Thursday.
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March 27, 2025
Ex-Atty Ran $840M Tax Evasion Scheme, DOJ Says
A former tax and real estate attorney ran a nationwide scheme that helped his customers avoid paying taxes on as much as $840 million in capital gains, the federal government told an Idaho federal court Thursday.
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March 27, 2025
US Ranked Low At Fighting Real Estate Money Laundering
The U.S. is the third-worst country when it comes to fighting money laundering in real estate because of a lack of regulations, according to a report ranking the national markets of 24 countries.
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March 27, 2025
Final APAs Dipped Slightly From 2023 Record High, IRS Says
The Internal Revenue Service finalized slightly fewer advance pricing agreements for U.S. multinational corporations in 2024 following a record high in the previous year, according to an agency report released Thursday.
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March 27, 2025
Payroll Co. Hid IRS Interest Money From Clients, Court Told
A payroll provider for a maintenance company never passed along interest payments from the Internal Revenue Service related to its clients' pandemic-era relief claims, the company alleged in a proposed class action filed in Washington federal court.
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March 27, 2025
9th Circ. Won't Stay Injunction Compelling Fed. Worker Rehire
A split Ninth Circuit panel has refused to block an injunction compelling the Trump administration to reinstate about 16,000 probationary employees to six federal agencies, saying the administration will likely lose its argument that the agencies weren't acting on an order from above when they fired the workers.
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March 27, 2025
NFTC Keeps Pushing For Standardized Pillar 2 Reporting
The National Foreign Trade Council reiterated its request for the OECD to ensure a standardized approach to acquiring the cross-jurisdiction information required for Pillar Two global minimum tax returns, noting its members still have confidentiality concerns.
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March 26, 2025
Sotomayor Urges Caution On Nondelegation Doctrine Revamp
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor cautioned her colleagues during oral arguments Wednesday against using a challenge to the Federal Communications Commission's administration of a broadband subsidy program as a way to resurrect the long-dormant nondelegation doctrine. Several conservative justices, however, seemed willing to disregard that admonition.
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March 26, 2025
Senate Sends Repeal Of Crypto Broker Rule To Trump
The Senate passed legislation Wednesday that would repeal a final U.S. Treasury Department rule implementing additional reporting requirements for decentralized finance brokers such as cryptocurrency platforms, sending the resolution to President Donald Trump's desk to sign.
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March 26, 2025
Coalition Says Trump Admin Flouted Federal Rehiring Order
The Trump administration responded to an injunction compelling it to rehire over 15,000 fired probationary employees by placing them on leave, not bringing them back to work, a coalition of advocates for the workers told a California federal judge Wednesday, saying the administration hasn't complied with the injunction.
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March 26, 2025
Par Funding's Ex-CEO Gets 15½ Years For Racketeering, Fraud
Par Funding ex-CEO Joseph LaForte was sentenced to 15½ years in prison Wednesday for his role in running a $404 million racketeering conspiracy that prosecutors said involved him bilking the cash advance business's investors and threatening its borrowers with violence if they didn't pay up.
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March 26, 2025
Tax Court Erred In Ex-Braves' Easement Feud, 11th Circ. Told
Two former Atlanta Braves players reupped their arguments before the Eleventh Circuit that the U.S. Tax Court made grave errors in a case that slashed their conservation easement value, saying the federal government's failure to address those missteps shields the issues from legal scrutiny.
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March 26, 2025
Feds Seek 2 Years For Device-Maker's $2.4M Tax Evasion
A Floridian who made millions of dollars on medical devices and pled guilty to evading $2.4 million in taxes should be sentenced to between 24 and 30 months in prison for tax evasion based on the severity of his offense, the U.S. told a federal court Wednesday.
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March 26, 2025
Senate Approves Trump's Pick For Deputy Treasury Secretary
The Senate approved President Donald Trump's nomination of Michael Faulkender to the post of deputy secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday, sending the economist back to the agency for a second tenure.
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March 26, 2025
Engineering Co. Owner Can't Deduct His Time, Tax Court Says
The owner of a Colorado engineering company cannot deduct the value of the time he spent working on software without showing any amounts actually paid, the U.S. Tax Court ruled Wednesday in upholding the majority of $135,000 in tax deficiencies, plus penalties, against the owner.
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March 26, 2025
Ex-UBS North America CEO's $4.9M FBAR Deal Gets OK
The former North American CEO for Swiss bank UBS will pay a $4.9 million judgment under a deal approved by a Connecticut federal court Wednesday that resolves the U.S. government's suit alleging he willfully neglected to file foreign bank account reports with the IRS for a decade.
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March 26, 2025
Goldstein's Devices Must Be Monitored, Judge Affirms
A Maryland federal judge on Tuesday rejected U.S. Supreme Court lawyer and SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein's request to dismiss a bail condition that requires his electronic devices to be monitored out of concerns that he's been hiding millions in cryptocurrency from the government and could flee while facing tax evasion charges.
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March 26, 2025
Justices Rule Ch. 7 Trustee Can't Recover Tax Payments
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday reversed a Tenth Circuit decision allowing the bankruptcy trustee of a defunct Utah company to claw back $145,000 in federal taxes, saying the sections of the Bankruptcy Code relied upon by the trustee provide only a limited waiver of sovereign immunity.
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March 25, 2025
IRS Cuts May Delay Taxpayer Help Beyond 2025 Filing Season
IRS staff cuts and early retirements, driven by the White House's push to shrink government, will likely lead to longer phone hold times and reduced service and make it harder for taxpayers to get assistance for the remainder of the 2025 tax return filing season and beyond.
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March 25, 2025
Md. Bank Disputes IRS Denial Of Captive Tax Perk
A Maryland community bank is contesting in the U.S. Tax Court the Internal Revenue Service's decision to scrap two years' worth of tax deductions tied to a reinsurance captive, disputing the agency's findings that the arrangement had no economic purpose other than tax avoidance.
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March 25, 2025
Californian Must Allocate Half Of Income To Husband
A woman who filed returns separately from her husband must allocate half her income to him under California community property law, the U.S. Tax Court ruled Tuesday, determining the husband did indeed live in the state.
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March 25, 2025
AICPA Suggests Changes To IRS Retirement Enrollment Rules
Final Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Department of the Treasury rules establishing automatic enrollment requirements for certain retirement plans should clarify that investment requirements are not applicable to certain plans, the American Institute of CPAs said in a letter released Tuesday.
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March 25, 2025
Tax Court Affirms Captive Insurance Premiums Nondeductible
Shareholders in a California company cannot deduct their premium payments for insurance coverage from a captive insurer, the U.S. Tax Court ruled Tuesday, saying the arrangement did not constitute insurance for federal tax purposes.
Expert Analysis
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A Midyear Forecast: Tailwinds Expected For Atty Hourly Rates
Hourly rates for partners, associates and support staff continued to rise in the first half of this year, and this growth shows no signs of slowing for the rest of 2024 and into next year, driven in part by the return of mergers and acquisitions and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, says Chuck Chandler at Valeo Partners.
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States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions
Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.
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After Chevron: Uniform Tax Law Interpretation Not Guaranteed
The loss of Chevron deference will significantly alter the relationship between the IRS, courts and Congress when it comes to tax law, potentially precipitating more transparent rulemaking, but also provoking greater uncertainty due to variability in judicial interpretation, say Michelle Levin and Carneil Wilson at Dentons.
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Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice
The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.
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How High Court Approached Time Limit On Reg Challenges
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve Board effectively gives new entities their own personal statute of limitations to challenge rules and regulations, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh's concurrence may portend the court's view that those entities do not need to be directly regulated, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.
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How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts
As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.
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A Tale Of 2 Trump Cases: The Rule Of Law Is A Live Issue
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week in Trump v. U.S., holding that former President Donald Trump has broad immunity from prosecution, undercuts the rule of law, while the former president’s New York hush money conviction vindicates it in eight key ways, says David Postel at Henein Hutchison.
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Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron
The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper decision will shape the contours of industry self-regulation in the years to come, providing opportunities for this often-misunderstood practice, says Eric Reicin at BBB National Programs.
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3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron
The U.S. Supreme Court clearly thinks it has done something big in overturning the Chevron precedent that had given deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, but regulated parties have to consider how agencies retain significant power to shape the law and its meaning, say attorneys at K&L Gates.
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Atty Well-Being Efforts Ignore Root Causes Of The Problem
The legal industry is engaged in a critical conversation about lawyers' mental health, but current attorney well-being programs primarily focus on helping lawyers cope with the stress of excessive workloads, instead of examining whether this work culture is even fundamentally compatible with lawyer well-being, says Jonathan Baum at Avenir Guild.
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Tracking Implementation Of IRA Programs As Election Nears
As the Biden administration races to cement key regulations implementing the Inflation Reduction Act, a number of the law's programs and incentives are at risk of delay or repeal if Republicans retake control of Congress, the White House or both — so stakeholders should closely watch ongoing IRA implementation and guidance, say attorneys at Squire Patton.
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Unpacking The Circuit Split Over A Federal Atty Fee Rule
Federal circuit courts that have addressed Rule 41(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are split as to whether attorney fees are included as part of the costs of a previously dismissed action, so practitioners aiming to recover or avoid fees should tailor arguments to the appropriate court, says Joseph Myles and Lionel Lavenue at Finnegan.
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Takeaways From Justices' Redemption Insurance Decision
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Connelly v. U.S. examines how to determine the fair market value of shares in a closely held company for estate tax purposes, and clarifies how life insurance held by the company to enable redemption of a decedent’s shares affects that calculation, says Evelyn Haralampu at Burns & Levinson.