Is the IRS Audit in Everything Everywhere All at Once Accurate?

Audits, In the News, IRS, Tax Collection Issues, Taxes, Taxes in the News
Is the IRS Audit in Everything Everywhere All at Once Accurate?

Everything Everywhere All at Once won seven Oscars at the 95th Academy Awards including for Best Picture. The movie begins with the havoc unleashed by IRS Agent Deirdre Beaubeirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis won Best Supporting Actress), when she audits the laundromat of Evelyn & Waymond Wang (Michelle Yeoh won Best Actress and Ke Huy Kwan won Best Supporting Actor. But are the audit scenes realistic? Short answer: yes, but mostly no. Here’s how the movie differs from a real-life IRS audit. Read more »

Section 1031 Exchanges to Defer Capital Gains Tax

Taxes
Section 1031 Exchanges to Defer Capital Gains Tax

Rising real estate prices create tax problems for owners selling property. While it’s great to sell at high prices, it’s also discouraging to pay big capital gains taxes on the proceeds. That “gain” – the difference between sales proceeds and the adjusted basis in the property (the amount paid for it originally) can be deferred with Section 1031 exchanges. But the rules are complex. Read more>>

IRS Enforcement Priorities: Pursue $900,000 or $9,000?

Tax Collection Issues, Taxes, Taxes in the News
IRS Enforcement Priorities: Pursue $900,000 or $9,000?

The IRS’s enforcement priorities often appear – well – insane. Consider the cases of two current clients: one client owes the IRS $900,000, and the IRS thinks the other client owes $6,000 from a IRA distribution he took the year of the Woolsey Fire. We’re disputing the $6,000: Congress relaxed the rules for people in the disaster zone. Who’s the IRS going after? My client who had to evacuate from his house with the $9,000 tax bill. Huh? Seriously? Read more>>

Were Comey & McCabe IRS Audits Politically-Motivated? Unlikely

Audits, In the News, Taxes, Taxes in the News
Were Comey & McCabe IRS Audits Politically-Motivated? Unlikely

I was a tax attorney at the IRS for a decade. So you know I’ve been all over the fascinating story that the IRS recently subjected  former FBI Directors James Comey and Andrew McCabe to its most invasive NRP audit. Comey and McCabe were famously fired and publicly abused by former President Trump. Suspicious minds now wonder whether IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, a Trump appointee, ordered the audits on these two men as a form of political retribution. Very unlikely. Here’s why.Read more>>