Like fences, the statutes in subtitle F of the Tax Code define the operational area in which the IRS administers the tax laws. Statutory words - like pickets - place important boundaries on IRS action. Statutory silence - the spaces surrounding the words - can be just as important to understand...

CIC Services did not want to give the IRS certain information required by Notice 2016-66. It and another entity instead sued in federal district court, asking the court to: (1) declare Notice 2016-66 invalid and (2) permanently enjoin the Service from enforcing the Notice. The district court...

The Tax Court has started issuing more and more opinions dealing with disputes over the proper application of the Premium Tax Credit Provisions in §36B. Those opinions show that the Court views §36B as containing no wiggle room to deal with reasonable taxpayer errors in calculating their...

Creditors call it fraud. Debtors call it asset protection. I call it the “asset shuffle.” Whatever you call it, it is an age-old dance done by debtors trying to keep their assets from creditors they don't like. Debtors either transfer assets to favored parties or else try to disguise their...

This is a book review whose main point is to note how the IRS Restructuring Act of 1998 created a new institutional voice: that of Low Income Tax Clinics. The fine treatise edited by T. Keith Fogg, entitled "Effectively Representing Your Client Before the IRS" is one way that new voice has found...

Treasury has historically regulated a group called “tax practitioners” (chiefly lawyers, CPA's, and enrolled agents) through the regulations contained in Circular 230. These regulations are issued under the authority of 31 U.S.C. §330 which permits Treasury to regulate “the practice of...

This article studies and critiques cases interpreting the Internal Revenue Code issued by the Fifth Circuit between June 1, 2001 and May 31, 2002. It's thesis is that in these cases the Fifth Circuit showed a distressing tendency to prefer form over substance and pretty much mangled economic...

In 2011 the Department of Treasury issued regulations that, for the first time, empowered the IRS to regulate the practice of preparing tax returns. Naturally, many tax return preparers were not happy about being regulated by the Feds. In 2013 a federal district judge nuked the regulations,...

Governor Palin's 2006 and 2007 tax returns create several teaching opportunities for basic tax classes. This paper analyzes five substantive issues created by the returns and by a legal opinion letter written by Roger Olsen on some of the issues.The five issues are: (1) the proper treatment of...