Bright idea doesn’t apply to S corporations

Paul DiMundo set up a corporation in 2002, had all of the shares issued to a custodial Roth IRA account and had the corporation elect to be taxed as an S corporation. An S corporation is generally not subject to tax. Instead, the income of the S corporation is taxed...

Litterers worse than tax cheats?

The message of a recent survey seems to be: Don’t get caught littering. Forbes magazine reports that the Shelton Group, a green marketing firm based in Knoxville, Tenn., had 1,105 Americans complete online surveys in an effort to find out what kind of...

Tax court judge shows creative side

Judge Robert A. Wherry, Jr., took a novel approach when outlining the facts of a recent Tax Court case involving a waitress who received a winning lottery ticket from a customer. The facts of the case (Tonda L. Dickerson v. Commissioner, TC Memo 2012-60, March 6,...

Put lottery-Ticket agreements in writing

Tonda Dickerson was one lucky waitress – at least until she got to Tax Court. One day in 1999, while Dickerson was working at a Waffle House restaurant, a regular customer gave her a lottery ticket. Unbeknownst to both the customer and Dickerson, the numbers on...

Some taxpayers qualify for a ‘Fresh Start’

If you know people who might not file their returns because they don’t have the money to pay the tax, the IRS may offer them some assistance. The IRS has expanded its so-called Fresh Start initiative to help financially distressed taxpayers by providing...