Richard J. Sapinski

Sills Cummis & Gross P.C.

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Recently by Richard J. Sapinski

Insurance Coverage & Recovery

Avrahami v. Commissioner: Good News or Bad News? It Depends

A reminder that a captive insurance arrangement cannot be reverse-engineered without a focus on providing insurance as it’s commonly understood.

On August 17, 2017, the U.S. Tax Court decided Avrahami v. Commissioner, a “Division Opinion” by Tax Court Judge Mark Holmes, and...

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Tax

Home Concrete & Supply Redux? Expansive Interpretation of the “Fraud” Exception to the Three-Year Statute of Limitations

As a general a rule, the Internal Revenue Service has three years from the date a tax return is filed to propose adjustments to that return or lose the right to do so.[1] However, the Internal Revenue Code also provides exceptions under which the three-year period can be extended. The exceptions...

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Insurance Coverage & Recovery

Beyond The Bright-Line Test: Rent-A-Center v. Commissioner – Long-Awaited U.S. Tax Court Decision Provides More Heat Than Light On What Constitutes “Insurance” Between Related Parties

In 1977, IRS issued Rev. Rul. 77-316,[1] which held that when a corporate parent insures risks with a wholly owned subsidiary, the transaction per se cannot be characterized as insurance for federal tax purposes because the risk shifting and risk distribution that the U.S. Supreme Court has...

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"Tax Amnesty" Is Still An Option: IRS Offers A "Second Chance" To Taxpayers With Undeclared Foreign Accounts And Holdings

On January 26, 2011, the IRS "moved East" in its attack on foreign banks and their U.S. customers with undisclosed offshore accounts. The Department of Justice indicted Vaibhave Dahake, an Indian-American businessman in New Jersey, for conspiring with several bankers at an "...

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Pending Cases In The U.S. Tax Court To Test IRS Transferee Liability Position On "Midco" Transactions

Beginning in the late 1990s, after a period in which it had focused on being more "customer oriented" while audit rates dropped radically, IRS woke up to the fact that major legal and accounting firms were marketing various tax savings strategies to taxpayers and earning substantial fees for their...

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