IRS Relaxes Debt Repayment Program

Yesterday the IRS announced that it was relaxing its rules under the offer in compromise (OIC) program. This is part of the IRS’ “Fresh Start” program, and is in response to the ongoing unemployment and financial crisis.

For example:

(1) The IRS will look at one year’s future income for offers paid in five or fewer months. This is down from four years.

(2) The IRS will look at two years of future income for offers paid in six to 24 months. This is down from five years.

Fewer months means a reduced collection potential. You can negotiate a smaller payment now. These offers must be paid within 24 months, however. This may exclude some taxpayers, but it will open the door to many others.

Many practitioners, including me, have been frustrated by the IRS’ unwillingness to acknowledge certain expenses and payments when evaluating installment agreements and OICs. The classic is credit card payments. We are presently negotiating child care payments with a revenue officer, as another example. The IRS has now expanded the National Standard miscellaneous allowance to allow for bank fees and credit card payments.

The IRS is also relaxing how it handles student loan payments when evaluating offers. It intends to do the same with state income tax obligations.

There is good stuff here.

A Tax Crook Story

I have previously argued against draconian laws to protect against the morally unscrupulous. The key concept here is draconian: the little good the law does is far outweighed by its burden on society. Sometimes I believe that recent tax regulation is approaching this line.

And then I read about Todd Halpern, a tax preparer in New Jersey.

In 2008 Halpern purchased a tax preparation business from the widow of the prior owner. He received all the computers and client records in the purchase. Makes sense: the widow didn’t need them. The new practice required a new electronic filing number, but Halpern did not obtain one. He kept the previous owner’s number. Why? Because Halpern’s criminal record would keep him from getting a new number.

Then he prepares a tax return for the mom of a client. The problem is that the mom had no income. She collected social security and was claimed as a dependent on her son’s return.  Halpern falsified her return, using fake income and deductions, to generate a refund. To complete the loop, he had the refund deposited to his account.

He kept doing this. After all, what could go wrong? The IRS estimates that he received approximately $375,000 in diverted refunds between July and August, 2009.

The guy is a crook. There exist enough laws to put him in jail.

Or maybe he can run for Congress.

The CP2000: Underreported Income IRS Notice

I am somewhat impressed with the amount of information the IRS processes in order to generate CP2000 notices. The CP2000 is the “Underreported Income” notice. I have seen the IRS flag bank and broker accounts, independent contractor payments and even W-2s that clients failed to clue us on.

The IRS receives almost 2 billion information statements (think W-2s and 1099s) annually.

NOTE: Do you wonder what the cost to employers and financial institutions is to generate these documents? The government doesn’t care, but it is a societal cost. Ignoring it doesn’t make it free.

It matches these against approximately 140 million individual tax filers.

The IRS generates notices to almost 5 million taxpayers.

The IRS unit responsible, the Automated UnderReporter Unit, has approximately 2,500 employees.

You have to admit, there is lot going on for only 2,500 employees.

CP2000 notices come out twice a year. The IRS begins matching information during the summer with the goal of a December mailing. The second wave comes right after tax season – in the second half of April.

The IRS is notorious for skipping line with these ACS notices. You might find yourself with a deficiency notice while you still have time remaining on the ACS notice. Been there. Often you can get the IRS to walk-back the deficiency notice.

By the way, do not send an amended return in response to an ACS notice. These go to different units and will likely cause unnecessary correspondence and telephone time with the IRS. Been there too.

Senator Schumer and Facebook’s Saverin

Good grief!

U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.) has proposed a 30% exit tax on people like Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Schumer is unhappy because Saverin has renounced his U.S. citizenship. Schumer believes this is tax-motivated, because Saverin is coming into quite a bit of money from Facebook’s IPO.

Here is the senator:

“Eduardo Saverin wants to de-friend the United States of America just to avoid paying taxes. We aren’t going to let him get away with it.”

Schumer apparently is a telepath, as he can read other people’s minds. Maybe he can star in the next X Men movie.

Let’s take this a step further. Have you ever heard of Jack Reed? This guy is a Democrat senator from Rhode Island. He wants Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to bar Saverin from entering the U.S.

Really?

I wager I could get a million signatures – without really trying - wanting to bar Congress from entering the United States.

Facebook and Tax Planning With Trusts

You may know that Facebook is going public. This means an IPO, hotly anticipated and all but guaranteed to make the founders incredibly wealthy. You may have read about Eduardo Saverin, who has renounced his U.S. citizenship and intends to become a resident of Singapore. There is discussion about tax motivations for his expatriation. Could be. Singapore has more lenient tax treatment of capital gains than the U.S. To be fair, Saverin only became a U.S. citizen in 1998, so his ties may not be as strong as that of a natural-born citizen.

I intend to blog about on Saverin and his tax implications, but for today I wanted to talk about founder Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook’s prospectus lists eight “annuity trusts” set up by insiders, including Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Sean Parker, Sheryl Sandberg, Reid Hoffman and Michelle Yee. These trusts hold approximately 22 million shares, which could be worth around $700 million at IPO.

You can afford a lot of tax planning with $700 million. The insiders have not spoken about this matter, nor should one expect them to. I have been reading tax commentary speculating that these trusts are grantor retained annuity trusts, also called GRATs. I agree. Let’s talk about it.

A GRAT is used to shift wealth from one taxpayer to another. In my experience, it has been from one generation to another.

The GRAT has to pay-out a stream of payments to its settlor (the grantor). The payment stream is called the annuity. There are two more considerations: how much to pay out and for how long. The shortest GRAT I have seen is two years. At the end of the term, the remaining money in the GRAT goes to the beneficiary.

All right, so the settlor gifts the remaining money in the GRAT. There may be gift tax, depending on the amount of money gifted. There is a version of a GRAT where “nothing” passes at the end, so the gift is zero. Why the quotation mark around “nothing?” Ah, there is where tax planners make their money.

You see, “nothing” does not actually mean nothing. In this area of the tax world, “nothing” can be something, and quite a lot of something. The “nothing” is a mathematical calculation and not an actual dollar amount. The key to the calculation is the interest rate. 

Say that I put $1 million into a GRAT. I want payments over ten years. I have to use an interest rate, because payments are being made over time. The IRS publishes minimum interest rates for this purpose. As long as I use their interest rate (or higher), there is no problem. Say that their interest rate is 5% and I am looking to zero-out the GRAT. In year one I would take out $150,000 ($1,000,000 divided by 10 years plus $1,000,000 times 5%). What if the money was invested in something that pays – or appreciates – at more than 5%? That is the key that starts the GRAT engine. Let’s say that the investment actually pays 10%. The GRAT is paying out 5%, or only ½ of its actual earnings. The trust is accumulating, isn’t it? Let it accumulate for 10 years and I can transfer a tidy sum at the end. However, for IRS purposes I am deemed to have transferred zero, zippo, nada, because the IRS allows me to assume that the investment is paying only 5%. According to IRS math, there is no money left over to accumulate. Ten years of zero is zero. There is no gift. There is no gift tax. The IRS cannot be wrong.

Let’s go back to the Facebook insiders. What interest rate do they have to use? Last time I checked it was around 1.6%. Do you think there is an accumulation possibility here with Facebook stock? Yes, I think so.

I am not making this up. I wish I could have been one of the advisors.

Actually, I wish I could have been one of the insiders.

IRAs and Nontraditional Investments

We have received several inquiries over the last year or so about using IRAs for nontraditional investments. This frequently means real estate, perhaps commercial real estate to house a closely-held business. It might also mean using the IRA to start the business itself.

These types of transactions are not without risk. One has the risk of business failure or decline in property value, of course, but also the risk of disqualifying the IRA itself. This would be very bad, as this makes the IRA immediately taxable. To protect against this, one should roll-over the required funds from the “main” IRA into a separate IRA. Should the unfortunate occur, only the roll-over IRA will blow-up. One has contained the damage.

A nontraditional investment requires a self-directed IRA. You will need to find a custodian that will permit nontraditional investments. Most will not. Let’s say you found one. Let’s use the acronym SDIRA for a self-directed IRA in our discussion.

A SDIRA can invest in a privately-owned business. We already know that an IRA can invest in a non-private business, as these are the publicly-traded companies whose stocks are in your IRA or are in the mutual funds in your IRA. This is your Google stock or your Fidelity Contrafund.

The type of business entity is important. The SDIRA can invest in a C corporation but not in an S corporation. Why not? Because the IRS does not permit an IRA to be a shareholder in an S corporation.

The level of involvement in the business owned by the SDIRA is also critical. There are two key tax issues here:

·         The SDIRA cannot enter into a “prohibited transaction.” This is a death sentence. The SDIRA will lose its tax-exempt status and become immediately taxable. If you are under age 59 ½, there will also be penalties.

·         The SDIRA might enter into investments which themselves trigger a tax. This is not as bad as a prohibited transaction, as the overall SDIRA does not become taxable. There is tax only on the income. If the deal is good enough, paying tax may be acceptable.

Prohibited Transactions

The IRS defines a disqualified person as

·         The IRA account holder

·         A family member of the account holder.

o   This goes vertical: grandparents, parents, children and spouses

·         An entity owned 50% or more by the account holder

Think about that last one. Here at Kruse & Crawford, I could theoretically use my IRA, buy an office building and rent it to the firm, as I am not a 50%-or-more owner. Rick Kruse however could not.

Let’s go though the prohibited transactions:

(A) Sale, exchange or leasing of any property between an IRA and a disqualified person

Example 1: My SDIRA purchases property from me or my wife.  This is prohibited. It doesn’t matter if it purchases the property in a “commercially reasonable” manner – i.e. obtain an appraisal. It is not allowed. Period.

Example 2: My SDIRA pays my daughter twenty-five dollars to mow the lawn on the property.  My daughter is a family member. It is prohibited. The amount of money is irrelevant. 

(B) Lending of money or other extension of credit between an IRA and a disqualified person

Example 3: I lend you $10,000 from my IRA.

Example 4: I personally guarantee a bank loan to my IRA.

Example 5: My IRA loans money to me. 

(C) furnishing of goods, services, or facilities between an IRA and a disqualified person

Example 6: I buy a piece of property through my SDIRA and hire my wife to manage the property.

(D) transfer to, use by or for the benefit of a disqualified person of IRA income or assets

Example 7: My SDIRA purchases real estate in Ireland. The SDIRA rents out the property for most of the year. However, my wife and I use the property for one week twice a year.   Even if my wife and I pay fair-market-value rent, this is a prohibited transaction.

(E) Act by a disqualified person who is a fiduciary whereby he deals with IRA income or assets in his own interest or for his own account

Example 8: I charge my SDIRA a fee to manage its stocks, bonds, mutual funds or other investments.

(F) receipt of any consideration for his own personal account by any disqualified person who is a fiduciary from any party dealing with the IRA in connection with a transaction involving IRA income or assets.

Example 9:  My SDIRA purchase a vacation house is in Augusta. I am offered the use of a Wyoming condo in exchange for use of the Augusta property during the Master’s tournament.

IRA Taxes

(1) Active Business Income (UBTI)

Earnings within an IRA are generally tax exempt. However, certain investments can create taxable income called “unrelated business taxable income” (UBTI).  Generally, UBTI is trade or business income which is not otherwise related to the tax-exempt purpose of the IRA. The idea here is that Congress does not want a tax-exempt entity competing with the taxable business enterprise next door to it.

So if you buy a Panera’s or a Caribou Coffee, you have UBTI.

There are some exceptions to UBTI, including but not limited to:

·         dividends

·         interest

·         royalties

·         rent from real property (however see debt-financed below)

·         sales of real property, if the property is not held as inventory or held in the ordinary course of business

Dividends and interest make immediate sense, as this means stocks and bonds - the traditional investments in an IRA.

UBTI Examples:

Example 1:  The SDIRA purchases a restaurant.  The income from the restaurant will be treated as UBTI.

Example 2:  The SDIRA purchases 25% of an LLC that flips (buys, fixes and sells) real estate. Since the real estate is considered inventory, the income to the SDIRA will be UBTI. 

(2) Debt-Financed Income ( UDFI)

If there is debt involved there will likely be UDFI.

Fortunately, UDFI refers only to the percentage of income resulting from the debt-financed portion of the property,

UDFI Example:

Example 3: My SDIRA purchases a B&B in Ireland putting down 75% and borrowing 25%. 

Note that if there was no debt, the rent would be tax-free to the SDIRA.

But there is 25% debt. This means that 25% of the rent is taxable to the SDIRA. The SDIRA does get to claim rental expenses, however.

Wealth Planning

You may have read that nontraditional IRAs are being used for wealth planning. For example, Max Levchin, the chairman of the social review site Yelp, sold over 3 million shares of Yelp held in his Roth IRA. There is no tax on Roth withdrawals if one waits until age 59 ½. Levchin is in his mid-30s. He will have to wait a while, but the money will be tax-free when it comes out.

Peter Thiel did a similar transaction. He bought shares of PayPal for approximately 30 cents per share while he was CEO of the company. In 2002 eBay bought PayPal for $19 a share. 

Now how did Levchin and Thiel avoid the prohibited transaction rules? Actually, it is very simple. You have to control the company to get into a prohibited transaction. Control is usually defined as at-least-50%. When you drain your IRA to buy that Five Guys Burgers and Fries location, chances are you will own 100%. Compare that to a publicly-traded company with tens if not hundreds of millions of shares. Neither Levchin nor Thiel came close to owning 50%. 

Is this fair? I would lead off by noting that “fair” is subjective, somewhat like asking what music one likes. Levchin and Thiel played the game between the lines. You or I could do the same. It might take a new skill set and a tractor-trailer load of luck, but you or I could (theoretically) do it.

Congress has noted these transactions. There is debate about whether this type of wealth accumulation should be permitted. Discussion has sometimes involved a “ceiling” on the amount invested/deferred in the Roth, but until now nothing has developed.

The IRS and Identity Theft

One of the downsides of increased electronic tax filing is increased identity theft. We had one of our e-filings intercepted this year by the IRS for identity mismatch. The IRS did not accept the e-file and instead required a paper return with Form 14039, Identity Theft Affidavit, attached.

I was looking at (OK, I was skimming) a report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration issued May 3rd. Imagine my surprise to learn that the IRS has no special procedures for our return with Form 14039 attached.

The IRS considers the paper filing to be a duplicate return and does not immediately process it. An employee enters a transaction code into the taxpayer file to memorialize receipt. The return then goes to a separate queue to be worked on, possibly after April 15 when the filing season has ended. The IRS transfers the file to Duplicate function for initial review. If Duplicate considers it an identity theft case, the file is again transferred, quite likely to the Accounts Management function. It is there assigned an assistor, who requests copies of the original tax returns and begins the process, including correspondence, of determining who the legitimate taxpayer is.

This process is slow and the refund can be delayed until late in the year or even the following year. The average case resolution is 414 days.

The assistor very likely works in Accounts Management. The problem is that these employees also answer the toll-free telephone lines during busy season. According to TIGTA, 87% of assistors working identity fraud also answered the phones, and 60% stated that they worked the toll-free line exclusively. TIGTA considers the optimal assistor inventory (that is, caseload) to be 100 to 125 per assistor, but the average assistor had an inventory exceeding 300 cases.

The identity problem is new enough that IRS guidelines are spread out over almost 40 sections in the Internal Revenue Manual. Sometimes the guidelines are inconsistent. The IRS in addition does not have procedures to spot trends which could be useful in detecting or preventing future fraud. One problem, for example, is sending notices to the last address of record, which could just be the person perpetrating the fraud.

Training has also been an issue. TIGTA’s survey showed that almost half of the assistors believed that their training was not sufficient. In one office, 13% of assistors had received no identity theft training.

To be fair, the IRS has agreed with TIGTA’s findings and has begun implementation of many recommendations. For example, there will be specialized units in Accounts Management to work only identity fraud cases.

Then we have Congress. Three representatives this week introduced the “Fighting Fraud Act,” which would double the current penalties for tax preparers who are involved with identity theft. The intent is to give the IRS greater incentive to prosecute this type of theft, presumably because the potential payoff is greater.

Really? This is the best the mandarin class can dream up? Here is an idea: the IRS assigns a PIN to every preparer. Require every professionally-prepared return to require the preparer’s PIN. If a preparer is involved with this type of nonsense, the IRS revokes the PIN and bans the preparer from working before the IRS.

Will this stop the completely unscrupulous? Here is a question in return: in human history, has it ever been possible to stop the completely unscrupulous?