The self-employment tax is our topic for this week, specifically dealing with two topics.  We revisit an issue last visited in the early days of the podcast (back in June 2005) of the treatment of LLC members for self-employment tax purposes.  We look specifically at the case authorities we have (which are scant, and not terribly promising for LLC members), the IRS's proposed regulations that were controversial when issued, and what options exist for dealing with the issue today.

As well, we revisit an issue raised in a February podcast, as the IRS unofficially "clarifies" their position on the self-employment tax treatment of Qualified Joint Ventures that is presented in the Form 1065 instructions and were discussed in the Tax Talk Today webcast and podcast from back in January.

The materials can be downloaded at http://www.edzollars.com/2008-03-24_Self_Employment.pdf.

The podcast is sponsored by Leimberg Information Systems, located at http://www.leimbergservices.com .

The question of whether a problem on a return was an error or a method of accounting is important, as we'll discuss this week looking at the Sixth Circuit's ruling in the case of Huffman v. Commissioner, where the appeals court sustained the 20006 ruling of the Tax Court (126 TC 322) that the CPA's consistent flawed attempt to calculate inventory as prescribed by the regulations for the dollar-value, link-chain LIFO method. 

The resolution of this matter in favor of the IRS allowed the IRS to get at what would otherwise have been out of reach errors in years closed for assessment by moving that income into years that were open under the provisions of §481.

The materials for this podcast can be found at http://www.edzollars.com/2008-03-17_CPA_Says_Error.pdf .

The podcast is sponsored by Leimberg Information Service, available on the web at http://www.leimbergservices.com .

This week we look at the Tax Court's second pass at the case of Hubert v. Commissioner, TC Memo 2008-46, a case that sent back to the Tax Court by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to decide if the LLC debt restoration provision made the taxpayer the payer of last resort under the Sixth Circuit's test.  The Tax Court comes back saying no.

The materials can be found at http://www.edzollars.com/2008-03-10_Risky_Business.pdf .

The podcast is sponsored by Leimberg Information Services, located on the web at http://www.leimbergservices.com .

The IRS has issued a safe harbor treatment for §1031 exchanges involving property that previously had or subsequently has personal use.  Revenue Procedure 2008-16 outlines the tests taxpayers can meet to be given safe harbor status on the question of the properties being held for investment or business use to qualify for §1031 status.

The materials for the podcast can be found at http://www.edzollars.com/2008-03-02_1031_Exchange.pdf .

The podcast is sponsored by http://www.leimbergservices.com .