On Dec. 21, 2020, Congress passed a COVID-19 relief bill (the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021) including the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020, which would provide much-anticipated extensions to critical alternative energy tax credits (including those for wind and solar projects) certain of which were on the brink of expiring. Generally, the bill provides for one- to two-year extensions depending on the energy generated from the project and modifies existing tax credit…

On 16 November 2020, the Dutch government published a protocol to amend the “Convention between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Republic of Poland for the elimination of double taxation with respect to taxes on income and the prevention of tax evasion and avoidance.” This followed the signing of the Protocol on 29 October 2020 in which the intentions of the countries were agreed upon. Continue reading the full GT Alert, which summarizes the Protocol.…

On Dec. 16, 2020, New York legislation was submitted to impose an unincorporated business tax (UBT) on partnerships and limited liability companies that are treated as partnerships for federal tax purposes. The legislation is intended to provide a workaround for the $10,000 limitation on deductions of state and local taxes (SALT) put in place in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and was recently given the green light in IRS Notice 2020-75.…

With the possible advent of widespread regional Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdowns around the United States, it is an appropriate time for a reminder about the availability of the 50% employee retention tax credit for wages paid to employees while a business is shut down. Continue reading the full GT Alert.…

On Nov. 9, the IRS may have endorsed a workaround to the $10,000 cap on state and local taxes when it comes to state and local taxes paid by passthrough entities. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 capped state and local tax (SALT) deductions at $10,000. This cap only applied to SALT deductions paid by individuals, not by corporations. This put passthrough entities (LLCs, partnerships, and subchapter S corporations) at a disadvantage, since…

On Oct. 22, 2020, the IRS announced it is offering a second time-limited settlement initiative to certain taxpayers who participated in abusive micro-captive insurance transactions and who currently are under audit. This second round of settlement offers, to be mailed in the coming days, has stricter settlement terms than the IRS’s first time-limited initiative. This increase in enforcement is occurring after the IRS deployed 12 newly formed micro-captive examination teams to increase the examination…

Taxpayers are generally limited in their options for contesting state and local tax matters. The statutes imposing income, corporate, sales and property taxes prescribe the steps to be taken and the forum for challenging those taxes. The doctrine of ‘exhaustion of administrative remedies’ requires taxpayers to go through the administrative procedures before being able to go to court to adjudicate their protests. This year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit opened the…