Happy New Year

 

State Taxation of Telecommuting

The year 2020 has brought us a new state tax issue.

To be fair, the issue is not totally new, but it has taken on importance with stay-at-home mandates.

Here is the issue: You work in one state but live in another. Which state gets to tax you when you are working from home?

Let’s start with the general rule: state taxation belongs to the state where the employee performs services, not the state where the employee resides. The concept is referred to as “sourcing,” and it is the same reason a state can tax you if you have rental real estate there.

Let’s follow that with the first exception: states can agree to not follow the general rule. Ohio, for example, has a reciprocal agreement with Kentucky. The agreement provides that an employee will be taxed by his/her state of residence, not by the state where the employee works.   A Kentucky resident working in Ohio, for example, will be taxed by Kentucky and not by Ohio.

Let’s pull away from the Cincinnati tristate area, however. That reciprocal agreement makes too much sense.

We need two other states: let’s use Iowa and Missouri.

One lives in Iowa and commutes to Missouri. Both states have an individual income tax. We have 2020, COVID and stay-at-home. An employee of a Missouri employer works from home, with home being Iowa.

Which state gets to tax?

This one is simple. Iowa.

Why?

Because both states have the same rule: the state of residence gets to tax a telecommuter.

So where is the issue in this area?

With states that are … less reasonable … than Iowa and Missouri.

Let’s go to Captain Obvious: New York.

New York has a “convenience of the employer” addendum to the above discussion. Under this rule, New York asks why the employee is working remotely: is it for the convenience of the employer, or is it for the convenience of the employee? The tax consequence varies depending on the answer.

* If for the convenience of the (New York) employer, then the employee’s state of residence has the first right to tax.

* If for the convenience of the (nonresident) employee, then New York has the first right to tax.

We for example have a Tennessee client with a New York employer who walked into this issue. He lives and works in Memphis, infrequently travelling to New York. We were able to resolve the matter, but New York initially went after him rather aggressively.

How does New York’s rule work with 2020 and COVID?

It doesn’t.

All those employees not commuting to New York were very much observing the convenience of their employer.

Clearly, this was an unacceptable answer to New York.

Let’s change the rule, said New York: the employee’s “assigned or primary” location will now control. If my accounting office was located in New York, for example, that would be my “assigned or primary” office and New York could tax me, no matter where I was.

How could I avoid that result? I would need to have my employer open a bona fide office where I lived. Some people could do that. Most could not.

Yessir.

There is no evolving tax doctrine here. This is ad hoc and reactive taxation, with much caprice, little constancy and the sense that New York will say and do whatever to lift your wallet.

There are few other states that follow this “convenience” rule: Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey come to mind. It is more convenient for them to tax you than not to tax you, to reword the rule.

COVID introduced us to two more states feuding over the taxation of telecommuters: Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Massachusetts decreed that any employee who began working outside the state for “pandemic-related” circumstances would continue to be subject to Massachusetts income tax.

It is the same issue as New York, one might initially think. New Hampshire will allow a tax credit for the tax paid Massachusetts. The accounting fee goes up, but it works out in the end, right?

Nope.

Why?

New Hampshire does not tax W-2 income.

How do states like Massachusetts or New York justify their behavior?

There is an argument: Massachusetts and New York have roads, infrastructure, schools, universities, hospitals and so forth that attracted employers to locate there. Their tax is a fair and appropriate levy for providing and sustaining an environment which allows a person to be employed.

Got it.

Don’t buy it.

I grew up in Florida, which does not have an individual income tax. Somehow the state nonetheless has roads, infrastructure, schools, universities, hospitals and so forth. The only explanation must be divine intervention, it appears.

Additionally, if I lived in New Hampshire – and worked from there – I might prefer that my taxes go to New Hampshire. I after all would be using its roads, infrastructure, schools, universities, hospitals and so on, putting little – or no – demand on Massachusetts. I might in fact be quite pleased to not commute into Massachusetts regularly, if it all. It seems grotesque that Massachusetts will chase me across the fruited plains just because I need a job.

New Hampshire has filed a complaint against Massachusetts with the Supreme Court. The argument is rather simple: Massachusetts is infringing by imposing its tax on New Hampshire residents working in New Hampshire.  Interestingly, Connecticut and New Jersey have filed amicus (“friend of the court”) briefs supporting New Hampshire’s position. Their beef is with New York and not Massachusetts, but they are clearly interested in the issue.

I personally expect the expansion and growing acceptance of telecommuting to be a permanent employment change as we come out of COVID and its attendant restrictions. With that as context, the treatment of telecommuting may well be one of the “next big things” in taxation.

Deducting “Tax Insurance” Premiums

 There is an insurance type that I have never worked with professionally: tax liability insurance.

It is what it sounds like: you are purchasing an insurance policy for unwanted tax liabilities.

It makes sense in the area of Fortune 500 mergers and acquisitions. Those deals are enormous, involving earth-shaking money and a potentially disastrous tax riptide if something goes awry. What if one the parties is undergoing a substantial and potentially expensive tax examination? What if the IRS refuses to provide advance guidance on the transaction? There is a key feature to this type of insurance: one is generally insuring a specific transaction or limited number of transactions. It is less common to insure an entire tax return.  

My practice, on the other hand, has involved entrepreneurial wealth – not institutional money - for almost my entire career. On occasion we have seen an entrepreneur take his/her company public, but that has been the exception. Tax liability insurance is not a common arrow in my quiver. For my clients, representation and warranty insurance can be sufficient for any mergers and acquisitions, especially if combined with an escrow.

Treasury has been concerned about these tax liability policies, and at one time thought of requiring their mandatory disclosure as “reportable” transactions. Treasury was understandably concerned about their use with tax shelter activities. The problem is that many routine and legitimate business transactions are also insured, and requiring mandatory disclosure could have a chilling effect on the pricing of the policies, if not their very existence. For those reasons Treasury never imposed mandatory disclosure.

I am looking at an IRS Chief Counsel Memorandum involving tax liability insurance.

What is a Memorandum?

Think of them as legal position papers for internal IRS use. They explain high-level IRS thinking on selected issues.

The IRS was looking at the deductibility by a partnership of tax insurance premiums. The partnership was insuring a charitable contribution.

I immediately considered this odd. Who insures a charitable contribution?

Except …

We have talked about a type of contribution that has gathered recent IRS attention: the conservation easement.

The conservation easement started-off with good intentions. Think of someone owning land on the outskirts of an ever-expanding city. Perhaps that person would like to see that land preserved – for their grandkids, great-grandkids and so on – and not bulldozed, paved and developed for the next interchangeable strip of gourmet hamburger or burrito restaurants. That person might donate development rights to a charitable organization which will outlive him and never permit such development. That right is referred to as an easement, and the transfer of the easement (if properly structured) generates a charitable tax deduction.

There are folks out there who have taken this idea and stretched it beyond recognition. Someone buys land in Tennessee for $10 million, donates a development and scenic easement and deducts $40 million as a charitable deduction. Promoters then ratcheted this strategy by forming partnerships, having the partners contribute $10 million to purchase land, and then allocating $40 million among them as a charitable deduction. The partners probably never even saw the land. Their sole interest was getting a four-for-one tax deduction.

The IRS considers many of these deals to be tax shelters.

I agree with the IRS.

Back to the Memorandum.

The IRS began its analysis with Section 162, which is the Code section for the vast majority of business deductions on a tax return. Section 162 allows a deduction for ordinary and necessary expenses directly connected with or pertaining to a taxpayer’s trade or business.

Lots of buzz words in there to trip one up.

You my recall that a partnership does not pay federal tax. Instead, its numbers are chopped up and allocated to the partners who pay tax on their personal returns.

To a tax nerd, that beggars the question of whether the Section 162 buzz words apply at the partnership level (as it does not pay federal tax) or the partner level (who do pay federal tax).

There is a tax case on this point (Brannen). The test is at the partnership level.

The IRS reasoned:

·      The tax insurance premiums must be related to the trade or business, tested at the partnership level.

·      The insurance reimburses for federal income tax.

·      Federal income tax itself is not deductible.

·      Deducting a premium for insurance on something which itself is not deductible does not make sense.

There was also an alternate (but related argument) which we will not go into here.

I follow the reasoning, but I am unpersuaded by it.

·      I see a partnership transaction: a contribution.

·      The partnership purchased a policy for possible consequences from that transaction.

·      That – to me - is the tie-in to the partnership’s trade or business.

·      The premium would be deductible under Section 162.

I would continue the reasoning further.

·      What if the partnership collected on the policy? Would the insurance proceeds be taxable or nontaxable?

o  I would say that if the premiums were deductible on the way out then the proceeds would be taxable on the way in.

o  The effect – if one collected – would be income far in excess of the deductible premium. There would be no further offset, as the federal tax paid with the insurance proceeds is not deductible.

o  Considering that premiums normally run 10 to 20 cents-on-the-dollar for this insurance, I anticipate that the net tax effect of actually collecting on a policy would have a discouraging impact on purchasing a policy in the first place.

The IRS however went in a different direction.

Which is why I am thinking that – albeit uncommented on in the Memorandum – the IRS was reviewing a conservation easement that had reached too far. The IRS was hammering because it has lost patience with these transactions.

Merry Christmas

 

Inheriting A Tax Debt

 I am looking at a decision coming from a New Jersey District Court, and it has to do with personal liability for estate taxes.

Clearly this is an unwanted result. How did it happen?

To set up the story, we are looking at two estates.

The first estate was the Estate of Lorraine Kelly. She died on December 30, 2003. The executors, one of whom was her brother, filed an estate tax return in September, 2004. The estate was worth over $1.7 and owed $214 grand in tax. Her brother was the sole beneficiary.

OK.

The estate got audited. The estate was adjusted to $2.6 million and the tax increased to $662 grand.

COMMENT: It does not necessarily mean anything that an estate was adjusted. Sometimes there are things in an estate that are flat-out hard to value or – more likely – can have a range of values. I will give you an example: what is the likeness of Prince (the musician) worth? Reasonable people can disagree on that number all day long.

The estate owed the IRS an additional $448 grand.

The brother negotiated a payment plan. He made payments to the IRS, but he also transferred estate assets to himself and his daughter, using the money to capitalize a business and acquire properties. He continued doing so until no estate assets were left. The estate however still owed the IRS.

OK, this is not fatal. He had to keep making those payments, though. He might want to google “transferee tax liability” before getting too froggy with the IRS.

He instructed his daughter to continue those payments in case something happened to him. There must have been some forewarning, as he in fact passed away.

His estate was worth over a million dollars. It went to his daughter.

The daughter he talked to about continuing the payments to the IRS.

Guess what she did.

Yep, she stopped making payments to the IRS.

She had run out of money. Where did the money go?

Who knows.

COMMENT: Folks, often tax law is not some abstruse, near-impenetrable fog of tax spew and doctrine descending from Mount Olympus. Sometimes it is about stupid stuff – or stupid behavior.

Now there was some technical stuff in this case, as years had passed and the IRS only has so much time to collect. That said, there are taxpayer actions that add to the time the IRS has to collect. That time is referred to as the statute of limitations, and there are two limitations periods, not one:

·      The IRS generally has three years to look at and adjust a tax return.

·      An adjustment is referred to as an assessment, and the IRS then has 10 years from the date of assessment to collect.

You can see that the collection period can get to 13 years in fairly routine situations.

What is an example of taxpayer behavior that can add time to the period?

Let’s say that you receive a tax due notice for an amount sufficient to pay-off the SEC states’ share of the national debt. You request a Collections hearing. The time required for that hearing will extend the time the IRS has to collect. It is fair, as the IRS is not supposed to hound you while you wait for that hearing.

Back to our story.

Mrs. Kelley died and bequeathed to her brother.

Her brother later died and bequeathed to his daughter

Does that tax liability follow all the way to the daughter?

There is a case out there called U.S. v Tyler, and it has to do with fiduciary liability. A fiduciary is a party acting on behalf of another, putting that other person’s interests ahead of their own interests. An executor is a party acting on behalf of a deceased. An executor’s liability therefore is a fiduciary liability. Tyler says that liability will follow the fiduciary like a bad case of athlete’s foot if:

(1)  The fiduciary distributed assets of the estate;

(2)  The distribution resulted in an insolvent estate; and

(3)  The distribution took place AFTER the fiduciary had actual or constructive knowledge of the unpaid taxes.

There is no question that the brother met the Tyler standard, as he was a co-executor for his sister’s estate and negotiated the payment plan with the IRS.

What about his daughter, though?

More specifically, that third test.

Did the daughter know – and can it be proven that she knew?

Here’s how: she filed an inheritance tax return showing the IRS debt as a liability against her father’s estate.

She knew.

She owed.

Our case this time was U.S. v Estate of Kelley, 126 AFTR 2d 2020-6605, 10/22/2020.

Do. Not. Do. This.

Here is the Court:

With respect to petitioner’s Federal income tax for 2013 and 2014, the Internal Revenue Service … determined deficiencies and accuracy-related penalties as follows:

Year  Deficiency Penalty

2013 $338,752    $67,750

2014 7,030,829   1,406,166

I cannot turn down at least skimming a Tax Court case with penalties well over $1.4 million.

Turns out our protagonist is an attorney. He more than dabbled in tax practice:

·      During law school, he took courses in tax law and participated in a tax clinic assisting low-income taxpayers

·      During school he was employed by Instant Tax Services (ITS) in Baltimore. ITS operated on a franchise basis, and he was the area manager for four storefronts. After graduation he served as general counsel for five years.

·      While serving as general counsel, he started acquiring storefronts on his own behalf. By 2013 he owned he owned franchises for 19 locations.

·      These stores were profitable. Aggregate profits exceeded $800 grand over the years 2008 through 2010.

You know, sometimes I wonder what swoon I was in to spend an entire career with a CPA firm. It appears that the money is in setting up and franchising seasonal tax preparation storefronts.

In 2012 ITS attracted the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice – and in a bad way. In 2013 a district court permanently enjoined ITS and its owner from having anything to do with preparing federal tax returns.

COMMENT: Ouch.

Our protagonist was good friends with the owner of ITS. So close, in fact, that Justice refused to allow him to take over the ITS tax preparation business.

COMMENT: Something about helping the ITS owner hide around $5 million.

A third party stepped up to take over the ITS business. This new person formed Great Tax LLC, and many of the ITS franchisees came on board.

Our protagonist was not to be denied, however. He bought the tax preparation software from ITS, put it in an entity called Refunds Plus, LLC (RP), and in turn leased the software to Great Tax LLC.

COMMENT: There is existing commercial tax preparation software, of varying levels of sophistication. We, for example, use software that allows for very complicated returns. It costs a fortune, by the way. There is other software that tones it down a bit, as perhaps the tax practice prepares few or no returns of great complexity. In any event, writing my own software seems a monumental waste of time and money, except for the following tell:

“using this software to process tax returns for GTX customers, most or all of whom expected refunds.”

Most or all?  Riiiigggghht. Perhaps it is just as well that I have stayed with a CPA firm for all these years.

Great Tax LLC paid our protagonist $100.95 for each return it processed and which claimed a refund.

COMMENT: Was a non-refund return free?

Our protagonist worked out an arrangement with Great Tax which allowed him to take money out of Great Tax’s bank account. He also opened a bank account for RP. He moved over $3 million from Great Tax during 2014.

However, he did not deposit the monies from Great Tax into the RP bank account.

So where did the money go?

Who knows.

Since this went to Court, we know that the IRS figured-out what was going on.

Our protagonist agreed that he owed the taxes, but he requested abatement of the penalties for reasonable cause.

He has my attention: what was his reasonable cause?

·      He was a cash-basis taxpayer.

And I like meatball sandwiches. Pray tell what that has to do with anything.

·      There was little to no cash activity in the RP business bank account.

Seriously? Was he aware that failure to deposit funds in its entity-related account is an indicia of fraud?

·      He relied on an attorney.

Reliance on a professional can provide reasonable cause. Tell me more.

·      She had been working as a full-time lawyer for about a year.

Not impressed.

·      She had acquired some of the former ITS franchises.

Had to be a story somewhere.

·      She had represented him when the IRS pressed in a separate action for abuse of the earned income credit.

We just learned where all those refund returns came from.

Let me get this right: his reasonable cause argument is that an attorney prepared his return?

·      No.

Who prepared the return?

·      An accountant.

Why then are we talking about an attorney?

·      She advised our protagonist that he was not required to report the $3 million as gross receipts for 2014.

Our protagonist in turn told the accountant the same thing?

·      Yep. He relied on an attorney.

If this is true, she may be in the running for the worst attorney of the decade.

And why would he – an experienced attorney with some tax background – listen to an attorney with limited experience?

·      The attorney and our protagonist were codefendants in a lawsuit alleging misappropriation of funds.

Yessir.

The Court requested documentary evidence that an attorney would advise that moving approximately $3 million to bank accounts of one’s choosing was not taxable income.

I’m in: I want to see those documents myself.

·      She supplied no evidence of letters, memos or e-mails – dated before those returns were filed – in which she advised petitioner about the reporting of RP’s gross receipts.”

Rain is wet. Nighttime is dark.

How did the Court decide this mess?

We did not find either’s testimony on that point credible. Petitioner’s testimony was self-serving, and [the attorney] did not strike the Court as an objective or candid witness.”

The Court did not believe a word.

Our protagonist owed the tax. He owed the penalties.

Frankly, I am surprised that the IRS did not go after fraud in this case. Perhaps the IRS was prioritizing its limited resources.

I would say our protagonist got off easy.

Folks, this is not tax practice. You know what it is.

Do. Not. Do. This.

Our case this time was Babu v Commissioner, TC Memo 2020-21.