Alston & Bird Tax Blog

Federal - Corporate Tax Planning

Tax Reform: Invitation to the Weekly Client Update from Alston & Bird

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With tax reform officially upon us, our subject matter experts will take a deeper dive into areas that are critical to your business, such as corporate taxes, international issues, executive compensation and employee benefits, and partnerships.   The 2018 call-in series will kick off on Tuesday, January 9. All seminars will start at 11am ET and last approximately 30 minutes. Click here to RSVP and receive the dial-in information.   [...]Read more

Tax Change Planning

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With tax cuts likely coming, it might make sense to consider establishing a C corporation for some new businesses. Our Federal Tax Group offers tax planners several different ways of thinking. Tax Reform Act of 1986 Payment of dividends and stock buybacks Less advantageous structures Read the full advisory here. [...]Read more

Second Inversion Notice

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The Treasury issued the new Notice 2015-79 to beef up the anti-inversion section 7874. It contains three rules applicable to deals closing after the Notice and two rules that are retroactive to the 2014 Notice’s effective date. Those two rules increase the potential taxability of post-inversion restructurings. The three prospective rules are the most surprising and potentially harmful to taxpayers seeking to invert. They all relate to the use of holding company structures, which are common in cross border tax planning. Holding company structure rules: If the foreign acquiring corporation [...]Read more

Déjà Vu All Over Again – The Recurring Saga of Expiring Tax Provisions

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If you go by what Yogi Berra says, tax policy and baseball have a lot in common.  Just as we head toward the end of the regular season of baseball and hope we make it to play-offs, Congress is doing the same.  Having returned from the August recess, they are looking ahead at what they need to do to finish strong.  As for déjà vu, the atmosphere surrounding expired tax provisions is markedly similar to what it was last year around this time.  Will the result be different this year?  Maybe.  Let’s take a look at the issues and what’s happened so far. Discussions of tax reform have [...]Read more

“Nobody Loses All The Time”: Remembering Negative Precedents

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The IRS can have a long memory when it comes to rulings and decisions against taxpayers. Even with the seemingly all-purpose economic substance doctrine in its utility belt, the IRS sometimes dusts off old precedents to attack transactions. Revenue Ruling 80-239, 1980-2 C.B. 103, and Basic, Inc. v. United States, 549 F.2d 740 (Ct. Cl. 1977) are two anti-taxpayer authorities that targeted perceived abuses that are now largely obsolete. Nevertheless, the IRS may still invoke these precedents for support in totally different situations. Taxpayers should be aware of how the IRS might use [...]Read more