Various rulings and tax agency actions in 2023 were arguably “unusual” and “surprising.” Most of these items were not the key holding of court decisions or IRS news releases or guidance. They were more subtle or buried. This article uncovers a variety of these oddities and posits what we might learn from them.

New year, new rules, the changing features of United States Tax Court practice and procedure confront the tax practitioner (even those who don't practice in Tax Court themselves), who must keep current among all the demands on our time, especially as the season opens. Let's jump in.

The House recently approved new tax legislation, some of which applies retroactively to 2023. Reliable reports suggest that the Senate likely won't vote on their version of the bill until later this month or possibly in March due to a two-week recess starting on 02/12/2024 – if they even approve it at all. Should the legislation pass, that would mean that there has been only one filing season (2023) in the last five (2020-2024) where tax law changes and other issues have not affected the filing season. We know that these sorts of changes have huge implications for the timing of service you can offer your clients, as well as the price you may need to charge for your work.

Lane Grigsby is back in the “news” as one of the major backers and advisers of Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, but that’s not what gets the chairman of Cajun Construction in Think Outside the Tax Box. For that, we have a recent decision in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote the opinion, and it’s all about the research credit.

Wolfgang Frederick Kraske, representing himself in Tax Court, pulled off a rare feat. He managed to get two opinions for the price of one in a relatively low stakes case . My friend Lew Taishoff found the regular decision about the $4,574 Section 6662(a) accuracy related penalty to be of great interest . I think the more interesting story is in the memo opinion that covers the tax deficiency of $22,687 for the years 2011 and 2012. It is mostly about Section 183: Activities not engaged in for profit, commonly referred to as the hobby loss rule. Although in this case, the activity does not even seem to get up to the level of a hobby, much less a business conducted for profit. I didn’t dig any deeper into the case, so the story you are getting is what Judge John H. Gale concluded. Kraske might have had something to say if I had interviewed him.

The inherent optimism of entrepreneurs makes thinking about things that mitigate the effect of failure not that unpleasant. In a career in accounting, you are likely to see many deals that don’t work out, so it’s best to remember anything that will lessen the pain. Section 1244 is such a provision. Section 1244 allows what would otherwise be a capital loss to be treated as ordinary. Its significance has been somewhat diminished, but every little bit helps.

A case currently before the Supreme Court, Charles Moore, G. Moore et ux. v. United States , has the court looking at some of the fundamentals of the Constitution’s treatment of taxation. Advocates of various views are hoping for an earthshaking result. Also, many “tax protester” arguments base themselves on misreading of Supreme Court decisions from around the time of the 16th Amendment. Knowing a fuller version of what surrounds the snippets they feed you probably won’t help you bring them around if they have drunk deep of the tax protester Kool-Aid, but it will help you maintain your own sanity. Let’s start with what the Moore case is about.

Somebody I consult for threw a kind of oddball fact pattern at me. Their client, “Terry,” owns a big house with many rooms in a kind of resort type area. Terry rents the rooms out on a short-term basis averaging three or four days and provides no other services. Between this and that, Terry ends up spending about 15 hours a week. The big concern comes from Terry buying a cost segregation study, which will mean a big loss. Can Terry use the loss in the year incurred, or will it be suspended? And is the income subject to self-employment tax in the future? I thought the answers to those questions were the same, but we learned from the Chief Counsel’s Office, one of those things is not like the other.