A Ghost Preparer Story

 

I came across a ghost preparer last week.

I rarely see that.

A ghost preparer is someone who prepares a tax return for compensation (me, for example) but who does not sign the return.

This is a big no-no in tax practice. The IRS requires all paid tax preparers to obtain an identification number (PTIN, pronounced “pea tin”) and disclose the same on returns. The IRS can track, for example, how many returns I signed last year via my PTIN. There are also mandates that come with the CPA license.

Why does the ghost do this?

You know why.

It started with a phone call.

Client: What do you know about the employee retention credit?

Me: Quite a bit. Why do you ask?”

Client: I had someone prepare refunds, and I want to know if they look right.”

You may have heard commercials for the ERC on the radio These credits are “for up to $26,000 per employee” but you “must act now.”

Well, yes, it can be up to $26,000 per employee. And yes, one should act soon, because the ERC involves amending tax returns. Generally, one has only three years to amend a return before the tax period closes. This is the statute of limitations, and it is both friend and foe. The IRS cannot chase you after three years, but likewise you cannot amend after the same three years.

The ERC was in place for most of 2020 and for 9 months of 2021. If you are thinking COVID stimulus, you are right. The ERC encouraged employers to retain employees by shifting some of the payroll cost onto the federal government.

Me: I thought you did not qualify for the ERC because you could not meet the revenue reduction.” 

         Client: They thought otherwise.”

         Me: Send it to me.”

He did.

I saw refunds of approximately $240,000 for 2020. I also remember our accountant telling me that the client could not meet the revenue reduction test for 2020. Revenues went down, yes, but not enough to qualify for the credit.

COMMENT: There are two ways to qualify for the ERC: revenue reduction or the mandate. The revenue reduction is more objective, and it requires a decrease in revenue from 2019 (50% decrease for the 2020 ERC; 20% decrease for the 2021 ERC). The second way – a government COVID mandate hobbling the business – does not require revenue reduction but can be more difficult to prove. A restaurant experiencing COVID mandates could prove mandate relatively easily. By contrast, a business experiencing supply-chain issues probably experienced COVID mandates indirectly. The business would likely need its suppliers’ cooperation to show how government mandates closed their (i.e., the suppliers’) doors.

I had our accountant locate the 2020 accounting records. We reviewed the revenue reduction.

The client did not make it.

I called.

Me: Did they say that you qualified under the mandate test?"

         Client: They said I qualified under revenue reduction."

         Me: But you don’t. How could they not tell?"

         Client: Because they never looked at it."

         Me: Then how ….?"

Client: They asked if I had a revenue decline and I said yes. They took my answer and ran with it."

Why would someone do this?

Because that someone works on commission.

There is incentive to maximize the refund, whether right or not.

I was looking at a refund of almost a quarter million dollars.

That would have been a nice commission.

No, the client is not filing those amended returns. He realized the con. He also realized that he had no argument upon IRS audit. He would have to return the money, plus whatever penalties they would layer on. I could no more save him than I could travel to Mars.

He now also understands why they never signed those returns.

Ghosts.

A Good Hire Can Help Prove You Are Serious About A Business

If you have gig, there is a presumption in the Code that it will be profitable.

Mind you, it may not be profitable every year. Not even Fortune 100 companies are profitable every year.  Still, the gig is expected to be profitable on a cumulative basis.

Seems obvious. Why are we talking about this?

Say that you have an internet-based business. The business itself is profitable, but you are spending so much on research, hardware, and infrastructure that - overall – the business shows a loss. You know better. You know that, soon enough, the business will turn the corner, those expenses will taper off, and you will make a fortune.

Or maybe you are funding a promising teenage boxer. Everyone sees the potential for the next Mike Tyson. You see it too.

What if your business is sitting on land that will one day be – if it is not already – absurdly valuable? Even if the business is unprofitable, the sale of the land will eventually trump those losses.

We are talking about hobby losses. You say it is a business. The IRS says it is not. It is one of the trickiest areas in the Code.  

There are several repetitive factors that the IRS looks for, such as:

(1)  You don’t treat it like a business. Little things are a tell, like not having accounting and not pivoting when it seems clear you have a loser.

(2)  You make a ton of money elsewhere, so it is financially insignificant whether that activity ever shows a profit.

(3)  You derive a high degree of personal pleasure from the activity.

Let’s look at a recent hobby loss case.

In 2004 the Wondries bought an 1,100-acre ranch in California. They borrowed at the bank, indicating in the paperwork that they would make money by selling cattle and providing guided hunting expeditions.

Mr. Wondries was a sharp cookie. He had already owned around 23 car dealerships, and he had a track record of turning losing dealerships into profitable ones.

He had no experience in ranching, though, so he hired someone (Mr. Palm) who did. Wondries hired Palm the same day he bought the ranch.

Good thing. Palm was mentoring Wondries on the fly, and they both realized that cattle raising was a no-go. They could not overcome feed prices. They thought about allowing the cattle to graze in the fields and growing their own barley, but a drought soon took away that option.

There was no money there. They sold most of the cattle.

Pivot.

Next was the guided hunting expeditions. The ranch was too small for certain (read: the desirable and profitable) hunts. We haven’t even mentioned insuring a hunting activity.

Bye to hunting.

Pivot again.

Wondries and Palm still thought they could make money by holding the land for investment. Seems that Wondries bought the land at a good price, so there was room to run.

Over three years (2016 to 2017) the ranch lost over $925 grand. You and I would have run for the hills, but Mr. Wondries’ W-2’s for the period totaled over $12 million. He could take a financial hit.

Big W-2. Substantial losses from a gig. Looks like meaningful personal pleasure is involved. The IRS caught scent and went for it.  Hobby loss. No loss deductions for you.

Off to Tax Court they went.

These cases tend to be very fact specific. While there are criteria the courts repetitively consider, that does not mean each court interprets, applies, or weights the criteria in the same manner.

Let’s go over them briefly.

(1)  The way taxpayer conducts the activity

 

The Court saw a business plan, an accounting system, and the hiring of an industry pro.

 

This went in the taxpayers’ favor.

 

(2)  Expertise of taxpayer or advisors

 

Wondries’ expertise was in dealerships, but he recognized that and hired a ranching pro. He also listened to the pro while trying to make the ranch profitable.

 

This went in the taxpayers’ favor.

 

(3)  Time and effort expended by taxpayer

 

The Wondries together spent an average of six days per month at the ranch. It was not much in the scheme of things.

 

To be fair, they had other stuff going on.

 

This still went in the taxpayers’ favor. Why? Because the manager was there full-time, and his time was imputed to the Wondries.

 

(4)  Expectation that assets used in activity will appreciate   

 This went in the taxpayers’ favor.

 

(5)  Taxpayer success in other activities

 

Wondries was a successful businessman.  

 

This went in the taxpayers’ favor.

 

(6)  History of activity income or loss

 

The ranch was a loser.

 

This went against the taxpayers.

 

(7)  The amount of profits compared to losses

 

The concept here is whether there were wee profits against huge losses.

 

This went against the taxpayers.

 

(8)  Taxpayer financial status

 

The Wondries were loaded.

 

This went against the taxpayers.

 

(9)  Elements of personal pleasure in the activity

 

The IRS pounced on this one. A ranch? Does anything say personal pleasure like a ranch?

 

The Court thought otherwise. They noted that the Wondries were working when they were there. They were hiking, biking, or boating when they visited their other properties. This lowers one’s motivation in wanting to visit the ranch.

 

The Court spotted the taxpayers this one.

 

The Tax Court decided the ranching activity was a business and not a hobby.

Not surprisingly, they also noted that:

                  This is a close case.”

What swung it for the Wondries?

Two things stand out to me:

(1)  The Court did not see significant personal pleasure in owning the ranch. In fact, it sounded like any pleasure from showing- off the ranch was more than offset by working every time the Wondries visited.

(2)  Hiring an industry pro to run the place. By my count, the ranch manager swung the Court’s decision in at least three of the above criteria

Hobby loss cases are fickle. What can tax advisors take away from this case?

Hire a pro to run the thing. Give the pro authority. Listen to the pro. Pivot upon that advice.

To say it differently, don’t be this:

Our case this time was Wondries v Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2023-5.

A 1099 Reporting Rule Is Delayed

 

You may have heard that the IRS recently delayed a 1099 reporting rule that was going to otherwise affect a lot of people this filing season.

We are talking about payments apps such as Venmo, PayPal, Square and Cash App. Use Lyft or Uber, purchase something on Etsy or buy lunch at a food truck and you are likely paying cash or using one of these payment platforms.

For years and years, the tax rules require a payment processor to issue a 1099 to a business if two things happened:

(1)  The business received payments exceeding $20,000 and

(2)  There were more than 200 transactions.

This flavor of 1099 is a “1099-K.” It basically means that one received payment for a business transaction by accepting a credit card or mobile payment app. Mind you, this is not the same flavor of 1099 as those for interest or dividend income, rent or stock sales. A 1099-K is issued to a business, not to an individual. However, an individual having a business – think a side gig – can receive a 1099-K for that gig. Think Uber or Etsy – or a teenage babysitter – and you get the distinction.  

I remember when the $20,000/200 rule came in. There was one year when the IRS wanted taxpayers to separate business revenues on their tax return between those reported on a 1099 and those not. Clients were not amused with locating and providing those 1099 forms. Preparers quickly adjusted by reporting all revenues as reported on a 1099, despite IRS protestations that it would render their computer matching superfluous. True, but preparers cannot spend a lifetime preparing one tax return because Congress and the IRS want a DNA match on any economic activity during the year.   

Congress changed the $20,000/200 law. The American Rescue Plan of 2021 reduced the dollar threshold to $600 in the aggregate, with no threshold on the number of transactions.

Fortunately, some of the business apps are trying to minimize the damage. PayPal and Venmo, for example, are allowing users to distinguish whether a payment is personal - think a birthday gift – or a payment for goods and services. Personal payments do not require 1099-K reporting.   

Many tax professionals were concerned how this expanded reporting would mesh with an IRS that is just barely getting itself off the floor from COVID202020212022. The IRS still has unprocessed tax returns and correspondence to wade through – the same IRS that recently destroyed millions of tax documents because they relinquished hope of ever processing them.

The 1099-K reporting has not gone away completely, though. The IRS delayed the $600 rule, but the old rule - $20,000 and 200 transactions – is still in effect. Yeah, it can be confusing.

Have you wondered why that $600 limit has never changed? The $600 has been around since the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, and prior to 1954 there was comparable reporting for certain payments exceeding $1,000. Mind you, average annual U.S. income in 1954 was less than $4,000. You could buy a house for twice that amount.  

Had that $600 been pegged for inflation – not an unreasonable request to make of Congress, which caused the inflation - it would be almost $6,700 today.

And Congress would not be burdening everybody with 1099 reporting at dollar thresholds less than you spend monthly on groceries.

 

Happy New Year

 

When A Tax Audit Is Not An Audit

 

I am cleaning-up files here at Galactic Command. I saw an e-mail from earlier this year chastising someone for running business deposits through a personal account.

I remember.

He wanted to know why his extension payment came in higher than expected.

Umm, dude, you ran umpteen thousands of dollars through your personal account. I am a CPA, not a psychic.

Let’s spend some time in this yard.

If you are self-employed – think gig worker – and are audited, the IRS is almost certain to ask for copies of your bank accounts. Not just the business account(s), mind you, but all your accounts, business and personal.

I have standard advice for gig workers: open a separate business account. Make all business deposits to that account. Pay all business expenses from that account. When you need personal money, draw the needed amount from the business account and deposit to your personal account.

This gives the accountant a starting point: all deposits are income until shown otherwise. Expenses are trickier because of depreciation, mileage, and other factors.

Is it necessary?

No, but it is best practice.

I stopped counting how many audits I have represented over the years. I may not win the examiner’s trust with my record-keeping, but I assure you that I will win their distrust without it.

Does the examiner want to pry money from you? You bet. Examiners do not like to return to their managers with a no-change.

Will the examiner back-off if all the “i’s” are dotted? That varies per person, of course, but the odds are with you.

And sometimes unexpected things happen.

Let’s look at the Showalter case.

Richard Showalter (RS) owned a single-member LLC. The LLC in turn had one bank account with Wells Fargo.

This should be easy, I am thinking.

RS did not file a tax return for 2013.

Yep, horror stories often start with that line.

The IRS prepared a substitute for return (SFR) for 2013.

COMMENT: The IRS prepares the SFR with information available to it. It will add the 1099s for your interest and dividends, the sales price for any securities trades, any 1099s for your gig, and so forth. It considers the sum to be taxable income.

         Where is the issue?

Here’s one: the IRS does not spot you any cost for securities you sold. Your stock may have gone through the roof, but the odds that it has no cost is astronomical.

Here is another. You have a gig. You have gig expenses. Guess what the IRS does not include in its SFR? Yep, you get no gig expenses.

You may be thinking this has to be the worst tax return ever. It is leaving out obvious numbers.

Except that the IRS is not trying to prepare your tax return. It is trying to get your attention. The IRS throws an inflated number out there and hopes that you have enough savvy to finally file a tax return.

So, RS caught an SFR. The IRS sent him a 90-day notice (also known as a statutory notice of deficiency or SNOD), which is the procedure by which the IRS can move your file to Collections. You already know the tender mercies of IRS Collections.

RS responded to the SNOD by filing with the Tax Court. He wanted his business expenses.

Well, yeah.

RS provided bank statements. The IRS went through and – sure enough – found about $250 grand of deductions, either business or itemized.

That turned out rather well for RS. He should have done this up-front and spared himself the headache.

Then the IRS looked at his deposits. Lo and behold, they found another hundred grand or so that RS did not report as income.

It is not taxable, said RS.

Prove it, said the IRS.

RS did not.

COMMENT: It is unclear to me whether this disputed deposit was fully or partially taxable or wholly nontaxable. The deposit came from a closing statement. Maybe I am being pedantic, but I expect a cost for every sale. The closing statement for the sale is not going to show cost. Still, RS did not argue the point, so ….  

Now think about what RS did by getting into IRS dispute.

RS filed with the Tax Court because he wanted his deductions. Mind you, he could have gotten them by filing a return when required. But no, he did this the hard way.

He now submitted invoices and bank statements to support his deductions.

However, using bank statements is an audit procedure. Why is the IRS using an audit procedure?

Well, he is in Tax Court and all. He picked the battleground.

Had RS filed a return, the IRS might have processed the return without examination or further hassle. Since bank statements are an examination step, the IRS would never have seen them.

Just saying.

Was this this fair play by the IRS?

The Court thought so. The IRS cannot run wild. There must be a “minimal evidentiary showing” tying the taxpayer to potential income. The IRS added up his deposits; that exceeded what he reported as income. Seems to me the IRS cleared the required “minimal” hurdle.

By my reckoning, RS should still come out ahead. The IRS bumped his income by a smidgeon less than a hundred grand, but they also spotted him around a quarter million in business and itemized deductions. Unless there is crazy in that return, this should have improved his tax compared to the SFR.

Our case this time was Richard Showalter v Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2022-114.

No Deduction For African Sculpture

 

You can anticipate the final decision when you read the following sentence:

One does not need to be a tax expert to open his eyes and read plain English.”

This time we are talking about art. Expensive art. And donations of said expensive art.

I am not a fan of the minutiae in this area. It strikes me as a deliberate gambit to blow-up an otherwise laudable donation for what one could consider ministerial oversight, but such is the state of tax law.

Then again, the taxpayer side of these transactions tends to have access to high-powered professional advice, so perhaps the IRS is not being intractable.

Still, one likes to see reasonable application of the rules, with acknowledgement that not everyone has advanced degrees and decades of experience in tax practice. Even if one does, there can be disagreement in reading a sentence, the interpretation of a comma, the precedence of a prior case, or the interplay - or weighting - of related tax provisions. Or maybe someone is overworked, exhausted, running the kids to activities, attending to aging parents and simply made - excuse a human foible - a mistake. 

It used to be known as reasonable cause and can be grounds for penalty abatement. I remember it existing when I was a younger tax practitioner. Today? Not so much.

One way to (almost certainly) blow reasonable cause?

Be an expert. I doubt the IRS would ever allow reasonable cause on my personal return, for example.

Let’s look at the Schweizer case.

Heinrich Schweizer was a high-powered art advisor.

He better not get into it with the IRS about art donations, then.

Schweizer received a law degree in Germany. He then worked an internship with Sotheby’s in New York City. When the internship ended, he returned to Germany to pursue a PhD, a goal interrupted when Sotheby’s recruited him for a position in their African art department. He there served as Director of African and Oceanic Art from 2006 to 2015. He increased the value of the annual auctions and provided price estimates at which customers might sell their art at auction. He also worked closely with Sotheby’s appraisal department in providing customers with formal appraisals.

Schweizer filed his first US tax return in 2007. He hired a CPA firm to help with the tax return. He continued this relationship to our year in question.

In 2011 Schweizer made a substantial donation to the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). He donated a Dogon sculpture that he had acquired in Paris in 2003. The deduction was $600 grand.

The accountants filed for an extension and contacted the IRS Art Appraisal Services (AAS) unit.

COMMENT: One can spend a career in tax and never do this. AAS provides advice and assistance to the IRS and taxpayers on valuation questions. A reason to contact AAS is to obtain a statement of value (SOV) after donating but before filing a tax return. The donor can rely on the SOV as support for the value deducted on the tax return. It is – by the way – not easy to get into AAS. The minimum ticket is a $50 grand donation as well as a filing fee for time and attention.

Schweizer obtained his SOV. All he had to do now was file his return and include the magic forms (Form 8283 with all the required signatures and secret handshakes, a copy of the appraisal, yada yada).

Guess what he did not do?

No properly completed Form 8283, no copy of the appraisal, nothing.

Remember: form is everything in this area of the tax law.

Off to Tax Court they went.

His argument?

His failure to meet the documentation requirements was due to reasonable cause and not willful neglect.

 Move me with a story.

He received and reasonably relied on advice from the accounting firm that it was unnecessary to include either a qualified appraisal or a fully completed Form 8283 with his 2011 return.

Why would I believe this?

Because the IRS already had these documents through the SOV process.

I know the conclusion is wrong, but it gives me pause.

OK, reliance on tax advice can be grounds for reasonable cause. He will of course need the firm to back up his story ….

The spokesman for the firm testified but did not corroborate, in any respect, Schweizer’s testimony about the alleged advice.”

Well, that seems to be prompting a malpractice suit.

Schweizer’s attorney will have to cross-examine aggressively.

And petitioner’s counsel asked no questions of […] squarely directed to this point.”

Huh? Why not?

The fact that petitioner did not seek corroborative testimony from the person who might have supplied it weighs against him.”

Well, yeah. If someone can bail you out and they fail to do so, the Court will double-down on its skepticism.

Now it became a matter of whom the Court believed.

To tighten the screws even further, the Court noted that – even if the firm had told Schweizer that he need not include a phonebook with his tax return - the Court did not believe that Schweizer would have relied on such advice in good faith.

Why not, pray tell?

Schweizer was a high-powered art advisor. He was also trained in law. He had done this - or something very similar - for clients at Sotheby’s over the years. The Court said: he knew. He may not have been an expert in tax, but he had been up and down this stretch of road enough to know the rules.

There was no deduction for Schweizer.

Our case this time was Schweizer v Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2022-102.

A House And A Specialized Trust

I saw a QPRT here at Galactic Command recently,

It had been a while. These things are not as common in a low interest rate environment.

A QPRT (pronounced “cue-pert”) is a specialized trust. It holds a primary or secondary residence and – usually – that is it.

Why in the world would someone do this?

 I’ll give you a common example: to own a second home.

Let’s say that you have a second home, perhaps a lake or mountain home. The children and grandchildren congregate there every year (say summer for a lake home or the holidays for a mountain home), and you would like for this routine and its memories to continue after you are gone.

A couple of alternatives come immediately to mind:  

(1)  You can bequeath the property under will when you die.

(2)  You can gift the property now.

Each has it pros and cons.

(1) The property could continue to appreciate. If you have significant other assets, this appreciation could cause or exacerbate potential estate taxes down the road.

(2) You enjoy having and using the property and are not quite ready to part with it. You might be ready years from now - you know: when you are “older.”

A QPRT might work. Here is what happens:

(1) You create an irrevocable trust.

a.    Irrevocable means that you cannot undo the trust. There are no backsies.

(2) You transfer a residence to the trust.

a.    The technique works better if there is no mortgage on the property. For one thing, if there is a mortgage, you must get money into the trust to make the mortgage payment. Hint: it can be a mess.

(3) You reserve the right to use the property for a period of years.

a.    This is where the fancy planning comes in.

b.    It starts off with the acknowledgement that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar a year (or years) from now. This is the “time value of money.”

c.    At some point in time the property is going to the kids and grandkids, but … not … right …now.     

d.    If the property is worth a million dollars today, the time value of money tells us that the gift (that is, when the property goes to the kids and grandkids) must be less than a million dollars.  

e.    There is a calculation here to figure out the amount of the gift. There are three key variables:

                                               i.     The age of the person making the gift

                                             ii.     The trust term

                                           iii.     An interest rate

A critical requirement of a QPRT is that you must outlive the trust term. The world doesn’t end if you do not (well, it does end for you), but the trust itself goes “poof.” Taxwise, it would be as if you never created a trust at all.

(4) There is a mortality consideration implicit here. The math is not the same for someone aged 50 compared to someone aged 90.

(5) Your retained right of use is the same thing as the trust term. You probably lean toward this period being as long as possible (if a dollar a year from now is worth less than a dollar today, imagine a dollar ten years from now!). That reduces the amount of the gift, which is good, but remember that you must outlive the trust term. There is push-and-pull here, and trust terms of 10 to 15 years are common.

We also need an interest rate to pull this sled. The government fortunately provides this rate.

But let’s go sidebar for a moment.

Let’s say you need to put away enough money today to have $5 a year from now. You put it in a bank CD, so the only help coming is the interest the CD will pay. Let’s say the CD pays 2%. How much do you have to put away today?

·      $5 divided by (100% + 2%) = $4.90

OK.

How much do you have to put away if the CD pays 6%?

·      $5 divided by (100% + 6%) = $4.72

It makes sense if you think about it. If the interest rate increases, then it is doing more of the heavy lifting to get you to $5. Another way to say this is that you need to put less away today, because the higher interest is picking up the slack.

Let’s flip this.

Say the money you are putting in the CD constitutes a gift. How much is your gift in the first example?

$4.90

How much is your gift in the second example?

$4.72

Your gift is less in the second example.

The amount of your gift goes down as interest rates go up.

What have interest rates been doing recently?

Rising, of course.

That makes certain interest-sensitive tax strategies more attractive.

Strategies like a QPRT.

Which explains why I had not seen any for a while.

Let me point out something subtle about this type of trust.

·      What did we say was the amount of the gift in the above examples?

·      Either $4.90 or $4.72, depending.

·      When did the gift occur?

·      When the trust was funded.

·      When do the kids and grandkids take over the property?

·      Years down the road.

·      How can you have a gift now when the property doesn’t transfer until years from now?

·      It’s tax magic.

But what it does is freeze the value of that house for purposes of the gift. The house could double or triple in value before it passes to the kids and grandkids without affecting the amount of your gift. That math was done upfront and will not change.

A couple of more nerd notes:

(6) We are also going to make the QPRT a “grantor” trust. This means that we have introduced language somewhere in the trust document so that the IRS does not consider the QPRT to be a “real” trust, at least for income tax purposes. Since it is not a “real” trust, it does not file a “real” income tax return. If so, how and where do the trust numbers get reported to the IRS? They will be reported on the grantor’s tax return (hence “grantor trust”). In this case, the grantor is the person who created the QPRT.

(7)  What happens after 10 (or 15 or whatever) years? Will the trust just kick you out of the house?

Nah, but you will have to pay fair-market rent when you use the place. It is not worst case.

There are other considerations with QPRTs – like selling the place, qualifying for the home sale exclusion, and forfeiting the step-up upon the grantor’s death. We’ll leave those topics for another day, though.