When someone dies owing you money secured by real property, you face important choices about how to collect. You hold a lien on the property itself. But what if the property doesn’t sell for enough to cover the full debt plus all accrued interest, late fees, and attorney’s fees? Can you pursue the estate for…
TX-LW Blogs
Convert Interest Income to Capital Gains on Sales by Omitting Interest?
Business transactions can be structured in any number of ways. Those who are tax savvy can structure their transactions to minimize and even avoid paying taxes. There are tax provisions that specifically allow for tax savings. To achieve the tax savings, one only has to structure the transaction to meet the requirements of the statute.……
Can the IRS Require Personal Information for a Business Tax Debt?
You have a business entity. You took the time to form it. You made all of the tax filings. And then the business can’t pay its own tax liabilities. It owes the IRS back taxes. As you try to work with the IRS to resolve the balance, the IRS wants to know about your personal……
Churches, Families, and Private Inurement
When you earn a dollar, you pay income tax and probably paid payroll or self-employment tax on it. When you spend what is left of the dollar after these taxes, you often pay a sales tax, property tax, or excise tax on the item purchased with the dollar. You may also pay an inflated price……
The Difference Between a Bad Business Investment and a Theft Loss
Business ventures fail for countless reasons. Partners mismanage funds. Projects never materialize. Promises about how capital will be deployed go unfulfilled. When an investment goes south, the parties have to figure out how to minimize the damage. This often shifts the focus to how to benefit from the loss, which can warrant closer examination of……
The IRS Collection System is Broken
Taxpayers sometimes owe the IRS and cannot currently pay. It happens. When it happens, taxpayers often reach out to the IRS for help. The IRS has processes in place to handle these requests. In fact, it has a while collection function that is set up to handle these requests. This collection function is a bureaucratic……
Can You Remove a Trust Dispute from Probate Court to the New Texas Business Court?
The Texas legislature created business courts to handle litigation cases involving business matters. The jurisdiction and scope of cases the courts can hear has not been fully fleshed out yet. Since many probate estates and trusts include family-controlled partnerships and LLCs, this begs the question as to whether these disputes should be litigated in probate…
You Can’t Raise What You Didn’t Know: The Variance Doctrine
Our income tax system uses a self-reporting process. Taxpayers, in most cases, voluntarily file income tax returns. The IRS can then evaluate the filings to determine whether they appear to be correct or warrant further investigation. The IRS has developed a whole regime of forms to be used for this very purpose. Taxpayers who fill……
Using Ranching Tax Loss to Offset Other Income
Ranch operations often start with genuine business intentions. A successful business owner buys land. They get into cattle grazing areas or orchards. The owner hires experienced ranch hands and invests in equipment and facilities. The ranch may make money from livestock sales, hay production, or crop harvesting. The ranch would likely report losses for the……