Existence of §754 Election Does Not Impact Whether Change in Treatment of an Item is an Accounting Method Change

In Chief Counsel Advice 201521012 the IRS concluded that an adjustment of the treatment of an item will not cease to be required to be treated as a change in a method of accounting merely because the taxpayer was a partnership with an election under §754 in place that would have caused a change in the §743(b) adjustment had the new method of accounting been used in the past.

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Fifth Circuit Strikes Down Tax Court View that §1234A Eliminates Ordinary Loss on Abandonment of Capital Asset

In the view of the Tax Court (but not the Fifth Circuit) the taxpayer and the IRS didn’t understand the real issue, but the Tax Court sent them back to look at the issue in a different way, resulting in a potentially significant decision in the case of Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation v. Commissioner, 141 TC No. 17.  The case ended up turning on the issue of whether it is possible for a taxpayer to achieve an ordinary loss when abandoning a security under the current version of IRC §1234A.

While the decision has been overturned on appeal (Pilgrim’s Pride v. Commissioner, CA5, 115 AFTR 2d ¶ 2015-477, reversing 141 TC No. 17), it remains to be seen if the Tax Court will continue to apply this view of IRC §1234A outside the confines of the Fifth Circuit.

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Late Election Relief Granted Where Partnership Tax Adviser Failed to Follow Through on Providing Guidance to LLC Members on Making Qualified Real Property COD Election

Sometimes events occur during an engagement that can cause an advisor to lose focus and fail to take into account issues the adviser knows about.  That appears to have been the case in a series of private letter rulings, each of which basically duplicates what is found in PLR 201509020.

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