We review the requirements found in the regulations for obtaining the required support for a tax position, concentrating on the methods outlined in Reg. §1.6662-4(d) in the definition of "substantial authority" which are cross referenced multiple times when considering other levels of authority.

The materials can be downloaded from http://www.edzollars.com/2008-08-25_Penalty.pdf .

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

This week we look at the Recent United States Court of Federal Claims decision in Fisher, Trustee v. United States, 2008 TNT 154-7 where the court sided with the taxpayer and held that the proper treatment of amounts received in lieu of shares in the demutualization of Sun Life were to be treated under the open transaction doctrine rather than treated as a sale of shares with a zero basis.

The materials can be found at http://www.edzollars.com/2008-08-18_OpenTrans.pdf .

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

The IRS issued new proposed regulations to explain the reduction of the NOL substitute in an S corporation setting when cancellation of debt is excluded from the S corporation's income under Section 108.  While the regulations are in proposed form only, the "deemed NOL" rules have existed in the IRC since 2002, and Section 108 is likely to be an issue for S corporations who face economic challenges.

The materials for this podcast can be found at http://www.edzollars.com/2008-08-04_108andS.pdf .

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

This podcast is the sequel to a November 2006 podcast on the same case--that of Kadillak v. Commissioner where an individual who was caught by the "dot bomb" crash of the technology stock of his former employer attempted to mitigate the damage caused by his ISO exercise and 83(b) election made at the height of the craze.  A year later, Mr. Kadillak was no longer employed by the organization, the stock price had tanked, and when he sold the stock that he didn't have to surrender got stuck with a $3,000 per year AMT capital loss deduction (probably for lifetime) to "offset" a large prior year AMT liability.

This week the Ninth Circuit ruled on the case and, unfortunately for Mr. Kadillak, agreed with the Tax Court's decision.  We look at the Section 83(b) election, it's downside risk that Mr. Kadillak obtained "up close and personal" experience with and some general observations on counseling clients about the "what if" problem when they are sure they know what the future will hold.

The materials are available at http://www.edzollars.com/2008-08-04_83b.pdf .

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