Albert Lauber, my favorite Tax Court judge, gave us an opinion in February that paints a detailed picture of the workings of a syndicated conservation easement. In the end, he supports the findings of the Senate Joint Finance Committee that the engine of these abusive transactions is an inflated appraisal. In November, David Gustafson issued an opinion that exposed the financial engineering techniques that promoters engaged in. We’ll take a look at those, but first I would like to give you an overview, because we may need that to figure out the lessons to be learned.
Tax Tales I Let Slip in 2025: From Whistleblowers to Easement Woes and Beyond
Peter J Reilly CPA
One of my greatest frustrations as a tax writer is that I just don’t have the time to cover everything that I notice. Early in my blogging career, when I was younger and had more energy, I set myself on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule like the college professors I envied. Even that did not keep up with everything I noticed, so periodically I would do a post that had short blurbs about interesting things I didn’t dig further on. Here is an example from 2010 of a post that covers an entity not considered a church by the IRS, S corp shareholder basis issues, definition of alimony and two Chief Counsel Advices on TEFRA issues. So here are some things for 2025, that I opened a file on but never managed to make an article with.
