John Anthony Castro is a colorful character. He entered several Republican primaries seeking the Presidential slot after failing to win the primary for a Senate seat representing Texas. He sued to have our once and future President Donald Trump be removed from the ballot on Fourteenth Amendment Section 3 grounds. As we can easily infer, those suits went nowhere. But more than anything, John Anthony Castro was a tax guy with a virtual practice with locations in four cities. Not anymore. Now he is resident in a Bureau of Prisons facility – the Federal Medical Center Fort Worth. On October 30, 2024, Judge Terry Means sentenced Castro to 188 months in prison, followed by one year of supervised release and restitution of $277,243, following his conviction on 33 counts of “Aiding and Assisting in the Preparation and Presentation of a False and Fraudulent Return." Does the sad story of John Anthony Castro hold any lessons for us? Perhaps.
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.
