Can A Trust Carryback A Loss for A Tax Refund?

I am remembering a tax issue from 2004. The firm I was with had a sizeable business client. The business owner had two daughters and wanted them to participate in the business. One daughter did; the other daughter went on to other pursuits. The father transferred shares to his daughters using special trusts: first a QSST (Qualified Subchapter S Trust), followed by an ESBT (Electing Small Business Trust). Trusts are normally disallowed as eligible S corporation shareholders, but the tax Code makes an exception for a QSST or an ESBT. Dad settled the trusts and acted as their trustee. He was of course also the majority shareholder and CEO of the underlying company.

The company was impressively profitable, but in 2004 it had a loss. It happens.

The company had been profitable. Its shareholders, including the trusts, had previously paid taxes on that profit. Now there was a business loss. Could the shareholders – more specifically, the trusts – use that loss to any tax advantage?

And we walked right into IRS Regulation 1.469-8. As a heads up, there is no Regulation 1.469-8. The IRS reserved that slot to provide its position on material participation by a trust. However the IRS never wrote the Regulation. Practitioners were required to divine whether their client trusts would be “materially participating” in an activity or whether the trust would be “passive” in an activity.

You may remember the “passive activity” rules in the Code. These were passed in 1986 as another effort to limit tax shelters, a task which they accomplished to an admirable degree. It did so by dividing business activities into material participation and passive activities. Generally speaking, losses from passive activities could not offset income from material participation activities.  There were problems, of course, one of which was Congress’ decision to label most real estate activities as “passive.” That may be the case for many, but there are people out there who make their living in real estate. For them real estate is about as passive as my involvement with my CPA firm.

Seven years later Congress corrected this error by enacting Section 469(c)(7), which said that the passive loss rules did not apply to someone who worked at least 750 hours a year in real estate, provided that his/her real estate activities were more than one-half of his/her hours worked for the year.

Now, our client company had nothing to do with real estate but had a lot to do with plastics. Section 469(c)(7) did not apply to them. I was aware that the IRS had informally intimated that a trust could not materially participate because a trust was not a person, and only a person could materially participate. I guess their reasoning made sense if material participation was like breaking a sweat.

The law was relatively new, and no one had yet challenged the IRS. The IRS was in no hurry to publish a Regulation. Why? I thought both then and now that the IRS suspected they had a losing hand, but they were not going to back off until they were forced. The IRS could ride roughshod until someone brought suit.

And I am looking at that someone. The case is Aragona v Commissioner, and it was a Tax Court case decided March 27.

Frank Aragona settled the trust in 1979. He died in 1981, at which time the trust went irrevocable. The trust had several trustees, the majority of which were family members. The trust owned a real estate LLC, which employed several people: family, leasing agents, maintenance workers, clerks, a controller and so on. Three of the trustees worked there and received a paycheck from the LLC. It was clear the LLC was materially participating in a business activity.

During 2005 and 2006 the LLC incurred losses. The trust treated the losses as “material participation” and carried the losses back to the 2003 and 2004 tax years for tax refunds.

The IRS said these were passive losses. No passive losses were allowed, much less operating losses that the trust could carryback for tax refunds. The IRS wanted back almost $600,000 of taxes. In addition, they asserted penalties.

Here was the IRS argument before the Court: a trust is incapable of performing “personal services” because Regulations define “personal services” to mean “any work performed by an individual in connection with a trade or business.” Obviously a trust is not an individual.

The Court immediately spotted the obvious: a trust is a fiduciary vehicle whereby a trustee agrees to act in the best interest of a beneficiary. The trustee may be a “person.” If that “person” in turn performs personal services in his/her role as trustee, then why cannot those personal services be attributed back to the trust?  How else could a trust possibly do anything? The trust would have performed personal services in the only way it can: through its trustees. The same concept applies for example to a corporation. As an artificial entity, a corporation can only act through its officers. It does not have arms and legs and cannot join a softball league. Its officers can, however.

The IRS continued that a trust cannot perform personal services because of words that Congress used in committee reports and selected Code sections. Funny, said the Court. When Congress intended that a Code section disallow trusts, it used the term “natural person.” A trust, not being a natural person, cannot take advantage of that Code section. Congress did not use that term in the Code section addressing material participation. Why-oh-why would that be, asked the Court.

The IRS lost and the Aragona trust won.

Let us say a word about the penalties the IRS wanted. Obviously they became moot when the Aragona trust won, but how could the IRS possibly defend asserting penalties in the first place? It refused to publish Regulations for 28 years, and when someone had the audacity to challenge them it responded by asserting penalties?

Here is an observation from a tax pro: the IRS is all but automatically asserting penalties these days. If there is an adjustment, the IRS clicks through its quiver of available penalties and lobs a few your way. It does not care whether you had authority for your position or whether you were just being zany. The government is going broke and the IRS is chasing money under every seat cushion. However, is this good tax policy? Shouldn’t penalties be reserved for those claiming unsubstantiated deductions, masking transactions or just making up their own tax law?

Here is an idea: if the IRS asserts a penalty and loses the issue, the IRS has to pay you the penalty amount. Force them to risk a losing hand. Maybe that will prompt them to back-off a bit.

Congratulations to the Aragona trust for taking this on. 

Renting To Yourself And The "Cox" Strategy

My partner brought me a new client’s personal income tax return. He wanted me to “come up with tax ideas,” as though I am an Iron Chef deciding what to do with the show’s “secret” ingredient.

Something caught my eye. Let’s talk about it.

Let me set this up for you:

(1) Taxpayer is married.

(2) The wife is self-employed. More specifically, she is a proprietor and reports her business income on a Schedule C.

(3) The business owns a house used as offices. The business depreciates the house.

(4) As is true for Schedules C, all her profits are subject to self-employment taxes.

There you go. You have all the facts you need.

Got it yet?

It has to do with the house.

There is a tax case from the 1990s addressing self-rental between a business and its owner. Taxpayer (Cox) was an attorney who reported his practice as a sole proprietorship.  His offices were in a commercial building owned jointly by Cox and his wife. He paid himself rent of $18,000, which he deducted from the law practice and reported as rental income elsewhere on his return.

NOTE: Cox addressed the “passive activities” rules. He apparently had passive losses that he could release by generating passive income.  If so, his net rental income might zero-out, and he would still get an income tax deduction for paying himself rent. It would be a win-win – if only the self-rental rule did not prohibit it.

The IRS of course disallowed the $18,000 rent entirely.

Cox went to trial on a very interesting position. He and his wife owned the rental property as tenants by the entireties. He argued that the form of ownership made a tax difference.

The Tax Court was intrigued. It looked to Missouri property law, and it noticed two things. First, each spouse is entitled to the use and enjoyment of the entire property. Second, a spouse cannot unilaterally divest his spouse of his/her interest in the property.

In a tax venue, this meant that Mrs. Cox was entitled to half the rent, and that Mr. Cox could not divest her of that right.

And the Court allowed Mr. Cox a $9,000 deduction for rent on his Schedule C. It disallowed the other $9,000 (that is, his half) under the self-rental rule.

How does this apply to the new client?

Taxpayer and her husband own the house. She owns the business. I see a strategy… for her self-employment tax.

Did I trip you up?

Remember: all her Schedule C income is subject to self-employment tax, which currently is 15.3 percent. One way to reduce it is to take a tax deduction on her Schedule C and report the corresponding “income” somewhere else on her tax return - somewhere that is NOT subject to self-employment tax. Somewhere like a real estate rental.

The tax pros refer to this a “Cox” strategy. The strategy we are talking about may also cause additional taxes under the new Obamacare “net investment income” tax. A tax advisor would have to review the situation and run numbers.

Still, it is something, and it is all your money until they take it from you. If this applies to your business situation, please bring it to your tax advisor’s attention. 

You Can Start Filing Tax Returns Today

Today the IRS finally starts accepting 2012 individual tax return filings.  It is January 30, 2013.

Why so late? You recall that Congress passed, and the President signed, a tax bill on January 1, 2013. This tax bill was retroactive to 2012. While the IRS tried to anticipate what would be in the bill, to do so exactly is nearly impossible. The IRS in turn separated the tax changes into two categories: those affecting the most people and the balance of the changes. It has programmed those changes with the widest effect, and this first category of taxpayers can begin filing today.

So if you claim state sales tax (because your state does not have an income tax), claim an education deduction or claim schoolteacher expenses, you can begin filing today.

What if you claim depreciation, own and rent a duplex or have a kid in college and claim an education tax credit (rather than a deduction)? You are in the second group and have to wait until late February or March. Your tax preparer can prepare your tax return, but he/she cannot send it to the IRS until then.

Here is the list of tax changes and forms included in the second category, if you wish to labor through them:

• Form 3800 General Business Credit
• Form 4136 Credit for Federal Tax Paid on Fuels
• Form 4562 Depreciation and Amortization (Including Information on Listed Property)
• Form 5074 Allocation of Individual Income Tax to Guam or the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
• Form 5471 Information Return of U.S. Persons With Respect to Certain Foreign Corporations
• Form 5695 Residential Energy Credits
• Form 5735 American Samoa Economic Development Credit 
• Form 5884 Work Opportunity Credit
• Form 6478 Credit for Alcohol Used as Fuel
• Form 6765 Credit for Increasing Research Activities
• Form 8396 Mortgage Interest Credit
• Form 8582 Passive Activity Loss Limitations
• Form 8820 Orphan Drug Credit
• Form 8834 Qualified Plug-in Electric and Electric Vehicle Credit
• Form 8839 Qualified Adoption Expenses
• Form 8844 Empowerment Zone and Renewal Community Employment Credit
• Form 8845 Indian Employment Credit
• Form 8859 District of Columbia First-Time Homebuyer Credit
• Form 8864 Biodiesel and Renewable Diesel Fuels Credit
• Form 8874 New Markets Credits
• Form 8900 Qualified Railroad Track Maintenance Credit
• Form 8903 Domestic Production Activities Deduction
• Form 8908 Energy Efficient Home Credit
• Form 8909 Energy Efficient Appliance Credit
• Form 8910 Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit
• Form 8911 Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit
• Form 8912 Credit to Holders of Tax Credit Bonds
• Form 8923 Mine Rescue Team Training Credit
• Form 8932 Credit for Employer Differential Wage Payments
• Form 8936 Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Credit

There is some rhyme or reason to what the IRS is doing. Category two changes require more extensive programming. In addition, those tax attributes tend to appear on more complicated returns. These returns – as a rule of thumb – are prepared later in the filing season or are extended.

Reviewing Two ObamaCare Taxes Springing Up in 2013

We are beginning over here to re-review the tax aspects of ObamaCare after the Supreme Court’s decision last week. There are several tax changes, but today we will revisit the new investment income tax and the new earned income tax. These will happen in 2013, so let’s go over them.

Investment Income

If you are single, you will owe a new investment tax if your adjusted gross income (AGI) is over $200,000. If you are married, you will owe the new tax if your AGI is over $250,000. (I know, twice $200,000 is considerably more than $250,000. I did not write the law). If this is you, will owe a brand-new 3.8% tax on your investment income.

Let’s be clear: it is not necessarily ALL your investment income. Rather it will be on investment income over $200,000 or $250,000, as the case may be. If you are married and retired and your entire adjusted gross income of $250,000 is interest and dividends, you will owe no NEW tax. You will owe plenty of OLD tax, though.

What is investment income? Let’s go with the easy examples: dividends, interest, capital gains (short-term and long-term), royalties and annuities outside retirement plans

NOTE:  Net investment income is also defined to include income from a passive activity. This concerns me, as the rental of a duplex is a passive activity, as is passthrough income to a “passive” member in an LLC. Under Section 469, these activities were considered “trades or businesses,” although the activity could be further tagged as “passive” or “nonpassive.” They were not however tagged as “investment.” This new tax appears to use the language differently from Section 469 and equates “passive” with “investment.” The IRS unfortunately has yet to issue formal guidance in this area.

How can this tax surprise you? Here are a few ways:

(1)   You sell your business.

(2)   You get married.

(3)   You sell your principal residence, and the gain exceeds the $250,000/$500,000 exclusion.

(4)   You inherit and sell stock from a parent’s estate.

Earned Income

If you are single, you will pay an extra 0.9% Medicare tax on your earned income over $200,000. If married, that threshold changes to $250,000.

What is earned income? The easiest way is to ask whether you paid or will pay social security or self-employment tax on the income. If the answer is “yes”, you have earned income. Note that this definition excludes your pension, 401(k) and IRA distributions.

Let’s go over a few examples.

EXAMPLE 1: A married couple filing jointly has $360,000 of adjusted gross income—$240,000 of wages plus $120,000 of interest, dividends and capital gains. They have $110,000 of investment income` over the $250,000 threshold. They will owe an extra 3.8% of that $110,000, or $4,180, in tax.

EXAMPLE 2: In the following year, the same couple has $400,000 of income, the difference being a $40,000 bonus. All their investment income is now above the threshold amount. Their new investment income tax will be $4,560. In addition, since their earned income is now above $250,000 they will owe the new earned income tax of $270 ((280,000- 250,000) times 0.9%).

EXAMPLE 3:  After many years, you move from Purchase, New York. You sell your house for $920,000 and are single.  Your exclusion amount on the sale is $250,000 so the taxable gain is 670,000. Assuming that you earned income is over $200,000, the new investment income tax will be $25,460 ((920,000 – 250,000) times 3.8%).

We will discuss other tax changes in a future blog. Some are delayed (such as the employer penalty) and others are already in place but are somewhat esoteric (the prescription drug fee).

Foreign Mutual Funds

Let’s talk about PFICs.

It is pronounced “Pea Fick,” and it is shorthand for a passive foreign investment company. We are continuing our “foreign” theme of late.

A PFIC is a foreign mutual fund. Think about your funds at Fidelity or Vanguard and relocate them to Bonn or London. That is all you have done, but with that act you have entered a twilight world of odd tax reporting.

Why? Treasury does not like foreign mutual funds. Why? That question has several possible answers, but I believe that a large part is because Treasury cannot control the taxation. A mutual fund in the United States is a “regulated investment company.” One of the requirements is that it has to pass along its taxable income to its investors in order to preserve its tax standing. Shift that fund to Bonn, and the German fund manager may not have the same level of concern in maintaining that “regulated investment company” status. The German fund manager may do something unconscionable, such as not declare dividends or distribute income to investors. That would allow the German fund to delay tax consequence to its U.S investors, possibly for many years. Why, the U.S. investor may eventually report the income as capital gain rather than ordinary dividend income. This is clearly an unacceptable scenario.

It didn’t use to be this way. The law for PFICs changed in 1986.

You are going to be specially taxed. You however can choose one of three methods of taxation:

(1)    The Excess Distribution Method

This is the default method and is found in Section 1291 of the Internal Revenue Code.

At first glance it sounds good. You pay no tax until you either sell or receive an “excess distribution.” When you do, the IRS presumes that the income was earned ratably over the years you owned the fund. You have to pay tax at the highest marginal tax rate. It does not matter what your actual tax rate was. What if the fund lost money for 8 years, had one great year that made up for all losses and then you sold at a profit. ? Doesn’t matter. The IRS presumes that your profit was earned pro rata over 9 years. Now you are late on your taxes (remember, you did not include the profit in your prior year returns because there WAS NO PROFIT). You now have to pay tax using the highest-marginal tax rates. For 9 years. And then there is interest on the late taxes.

Oh, you may not be allowed to claim the loss if you sell the PFIC at a loss.

 You really do not want to use this method.

(2)    The Mark to Market Method

This option was added to the Code in 1997.

You mark your PFIC to market every year-end. In other words, you pay taxes on the difference between the share price on January 1^st and December 31^st. Every year.

You forfeit capital gains and losses. Whatever income or loss you report is ordinary. Sorry.

The big requirement here is that the PFIC has to have published fund prices. If the prices are not published, you simply cannot use the mark to market method.

(3)    The Qualified Electing Fund

This is the method I have normally seen. The problem is that the fund has to provide certain information annually. As that information has meaning only to a U.S. taxpayer, the fund may decide that it is not worth the time and cost and refuse to provide it. In practice, I have seen these funds go through investment houses such as Goldman Sachs. Goldman can pool enough U.S. investors to make it worthwhile to the foreign fund manager, so the fund agrees going in that it will provide this additional information annually.

A QEF is basically like a partnership. It passes-though its income to the U.S. investor – whether distributed or not – and the U.S. investor pays taxes on it. Ordinary income is taxed at ordinary rates, and capital gains at capital gains rates. What changes is that Treasury does not wait for a distribution.

A QEF should be elected in the first year you own the QEF. If so, you avoid the “excess distribution” regime altogether. If you make the election in a later year, then there is a procedure to “purge” the earlier PFIC treatment.

The QEF election is made fund by fund.

Yes, there is a special form to use with PFICs. It is Form 8621 “Information Return by a Shareholder of a Passive Foreign Investment Company or Qualified Electing Fund.” It can be an intimidating three pages of tax-speak.

I saw PFICs a few years back, as we had several well-heeled clients. What I generally saw was a K-1, perhaps from a hedge fund. That fund in turn invested, and some of its investments were PFICs. The fund K-1 would arrive with its booklet of information, explanation and disclosures. The PFICs inside would further swell the page count. I remember these K-1s going on for 30 or 40 pages. These K-1s are not for young tax accountants.

As I said, Treasury really does not like foreign mutual funds.