The situation the taxpayer faced in the case of Morris v. Commissioner, TC Memo 2015-82 is one that will be all too familiar to many of us—a case of a taxpayer doing something unaware of the negative tax consequence.  It also is a case of a client reading more into advice received than the adviser expected the taxpayer would do—and, again, with negative consequences.

The result in this case should not be surprising to any tax adviser reading this—Elroy was the primary and sole beneficiary of his father’s IRA.  Elroy received a distribution of his father’s IRA as he was the sole beneficiary of the IRA.  But his father had indicated that he wanted a portion of the IRA to be shared with Elroy’s two siblings, so he paid checks to them for $37,000.

Dealing with the interaction of various statute of limitation rules can be complex that it appears at first and, in the situation described in Chief Counsel Advice 201517005, the IRS concluded that the taxpayer could not take full advantage of amending a return to change from claiming a foreign tax credit to claiming a deduction for foreign tax paid when that change to the prior return created a net operating loss required to be carried back.

The issuance by the IRS of a Notice of Determination Concerning Collection Action following the filing of a bankruptcy petition by the taxpayer was held by the Tax Court to be in violation of the automatic stay imposed by the Bankruptcy Code under 11 USC §362(a).  Therefore, in the case of Yuska v. Commissioner, TC Memo 2015-77, the Tax Court held that, given no valid notice being issued, it had no current jurisdiction in the case.

he taxpayer in the case of Tarighi v. Commissioner, TC Summary Opinion 2015-28 the taxpayer ran afoul of, among other things, the problem of the start-up expense provisions of IRC §195.