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 address privilege...

On January 16, 2026, in Sirius Solutions, L.L.L.P. v. Commissioner,[1] No. 24-60240 (5th Cir. Jan. 16, 2026), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the Tax Court and held that, for self-employment tax purposes, a “limited partner” means “a partner in a limited partnership that has limited liability.” Accordingly, it rejected the...

In Boulting v HMRC, the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) delivered a welcome decision for taxpayers on the tax treatment of a company purchase of its own shares. The general rule is that when a UK-resident company purchases its own shares from a UK-resident shareholder, the shareholder is subject to dividend tax on the amount by which...

In a unanimous judgment, the UK Supreme Court has given final confirmation that VAT incurred on adviser fees connected with an exempt share sale is not recoverable, endorsing the Court of Appeal’s strict application of the “direct and immediate link” test. The decision brings finality to an area that had generated uncertainty following earlier tribunal...

I.          Introduction On December 15, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”) and the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) published final regulations (the “Final Regulations”) and proposed regulations (the “Proposed Regulations”) under section 892.[1] The Final Regulations finalize, with modifications, certain temporary and proposed regulations issued in 1998, 2011 and 2022. Section 892 exempts...

I.          Introduction Should courts respect a transaction for tax purposes, when it otherwise complies with the technical requirements of the Internal Revenue Code and regulations? When should a court take the next step and consider the economic substance of a transaction and its motivations? In two highly-awaited court decisions – one recently issued by...

Earlier this year, a New York City Administrative Law Judge found that the taxpayers’ sale of a tenancy-in-common (“TIC”) interest in real estate qualified for section 1031 “like-kind exchange” treatment even though the underlying property had been owned that very same day by a partnership, which distributed the property to its partners on the day...

Snowbirds, take notice. In October 2025, the New York State Tax Appeals Tribunal issued a decision regarding a couple’s claimed change in domicile from New York to Florida for the 2018 and 2019 tax years. Matter of Hoff and Ocorr-Hoff, DTA No. 850209 (N.Y.S. Tax Appeals Trib. Oct. 9, 2025).  The case illustrates the challenges...

I. Introduction On October 20, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”) and the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) issued proposed regulations (the “Proposed Regulations”) that would helpfully revoke the current “look-through rule” for domestic C corporation shareholders to determine whether a “real estate investment trust” (a “REIT”) is “domestically controlled”. Accordingly, under the...