On May 5, 2026, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) released Revenue Procedure 2026-21 (the “Rev. Proc.”), which reinstates a program under which taxpayers may request private letter rulings (“PLRs”) on “significant issues” arising in certain corporate transactions[1] without asking the IRS to rule on the entire integrated transaction.[2]
Although ruling opportunities remain limited…
On April 21, 2026, in Liberty Global, Inc. v. United States, the Tenth Circuit held that the economic substance doctrine was “relevant” and applied to deny Liberty Global, Inc. a $2.4 billion deduction and imposed a 40% penalty with respect to a transaction known as “Project Soy”. The Tenth Circuit’s decision was highly anticipated, as…
The Court of Appeal has confirmed in HMRC v M R Currell Ltd that, prior to the introduction of the disguised remuneration rules, a genuine and repayable loan made via an employee benefit trust (EBT) is not taxable as employment income.
Although the decision relates to a pre-Part 7A regime, EBT arrangements continue to present…
The Court of Appeal has confirmed in Burlington Loan Management DAC v HMRC that “obtaining the benefit of” a tax treaty is not the same as “taking advantage of” it. The treaty anti-abuse rule will only apply where the taxpayer seeks to obtain that benefit in a way that is contrary to the object and purpose of…
Update: The National Taxpayer Advocate has published a blog post urging taxpayers to evaluate whether they have claims for refund based on the recent Abdo and Kwong decisions. Importantly, the Taxpayer Advocate suggests that the argument for penalty and interest relief based on the COVID pandemic disaster declarations is substantial enough to warrant providing for…
On March 19, 2026, in Jones Bluff, LLC v. Commissioner, 166 T.C. No. 6 (2026), the Tax Court held that a partnership could not assert due process claims to invalidate an IRS adjustment on behalf of its partners under the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (the “BBA”) regime. The decision does not rule on whether…
Many of our clients and readers will be familiar with the “loan to participator” rules. These rules apply to loans made by close companies, which in general terms are companies which are controlled by five or fewer participators (or by any number of participators who are also shareholders), to their participators. The word “participator” includes…
Although many of the procedural rules for auditing partnerships at the federal level have changed under the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (the “BBA”), some principles—like the effect of actual notice—remain the same. Under the BBA, the IRS proposes partnership-level adjustments in a Notice of Proposed Partnership Adjustment (“NOPPA”) and later finalizes them in a…
Relief from underpayment interest, failure-to-file penalties, and failure-to-pay penalties—as well as relief from IRS filing deadlines that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic—may be possible under two recent federal cases from the US Tax Court and the US Court of Federal Claims. Specifically, the recent Kwong decision indicates that the period of the COVID-19 federally declared…
On February 10, 2026, Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York ruled in United States v. Heppner that documents generated through a consumer version of Anthropic’s Claude AI were not protected by the attorney-client privilege or the work-product doctrine under the circumstances presented. The decision appears to be the first to squarely…
