On October 19, 2023, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced a process for businesses to withdraw their Employee Retention Credit (ERC) claims. The announcement comes just over a month after the IRS placed a moratorium on new filings due to concerns about widespread ERC fraud. Washington D.C. tax lawyer Kevin E. Thorn, Managing Partner of Thorn Law Group, explains what business owners need to know:Read More

In 2011, the U.S.-Malta Tax Treaty started a gold rush of sorts. The treaty’s language arguably (and unintentionally) allowed U.S. taxpayers to open personal retirement plans in Malta, contribute appreciated assets, and then systematically take structured distributions without incurring federal tax liability on the plan’s interest or principal. This led to many taxpayers opening Maltese pension plans—with some avoiding tens of millions of dollars in federal income tax liability.Read More

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently announced that it is continuing to target businesses that have claimed the Employee Retention Credit (ERC). The ERC was a limited-time credit offered to qualifying businesses under the CARES Act for the 2020 and 2021 tax years. According to an IRS News Release, the agency has identified widespread fraud related to the ERC, and, as a result, it is “actively auditing and conducting criminal investigations related to these false claims.”Read More

Among the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) many priorities is enforcing partnerships’ federal income tax obligations. In recent years, the IRS has implemented two major programs focused specifically on partnership tax enforcement, and we expect to see increased activity under both of these programs in 2022 and beyond. In this article, Washington D.C. federal tax attorney Kevin E. Thorn, Managing Partner of Thorn Law Group, discusses some of the implications of these recent developments for business partners:Read More