Federal
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January 28, 2025
Tax Group Of The Year: Cravath
Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP helped secure high-profile mergers and acquisitions for major media and communications companies in 2024, having played key roles in Paramount's $28 billion merger agreement with Skydance Media and a separate deal involving Verizon Communications, earning the law firm a spot among the 2024 Law360 Tax Groups of the Year.
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January 28, 2025
Judge Temporarily Halts Trump's Funding Freeze
A D.C. federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked a Trump administration freeze on federal spending that was set to go into effect at 5 p.m., as a group of nearly two dozen attorneys general filed a separate case challenging what they described as an illegal and potentially catastrophic move.
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January 28, 2025
Wealth Manager Cops To Funding Lifestyle With Client Money
A suburban Philadelphia investment adviser pled guilty in federal court Tuesday morning to charges that he stole more than $20 million of his clients' money, which he spent on international travel, country club dues, and a stake in a New Jersey mini golf course.
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January 27, 2025
Feds' Madigan Informant Is A 'Malignant Tumor,' Jury Told
An attorney for ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan took aim Monday at the former Chicago alderman called as the government's star witness in Madigan's criminal racketeering trial, calling him "a malignant tumor at the heart of this case" and urging jurors not to trust his testimony as they prepare to deliberate on his client's fate.
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January 27, 2025
Senate Confirms Bessent As Treasury Secretary
A bipartisan majority of senators voted Monday to confirm billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as Treasury secretary, putting in place a key member of President Donald Trump's Cabinet.
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January 27, 2025
Meet The Attys Surrounding Pa. Wealth Manager In Fraud Case
By the time Scott Mason and his company Rubicon Wealth Management were hit with criminal and regulatory enforcement claims alleging he stole $20 million from clients, the suburban Philadelphia wealth manager was already defending multiple civil lawsuits in Pennsylvania state court.
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January 27, 2025
SCOTUSblog Publisher Pleads Not Guilty To Tax Crimes
U.S. Supreme Court advocate and SCOTUSblog co-founder Tom Goldstein pled not guilty in Maryland federal court on Monday to charges that he schemed to evade taxes and used funds from his boutique law firm to cover gambling debts.
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January 27, 2025
Tax Pro's Personal Returns Fair Game, 3rd Circ. Affirms
The Third Circuit upheld a Pennsylvania district court's conviction of a tax preparer for filing false returns on behalf of his clients, saying the court didn't make a mistake in allowing the government to submit the preparer's own false returns as evidence.
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January 24, 2025
Feds' Madigan Theory 'Doesn't Line Up,' His Atty Tells Jury
Counsel for former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan told an Illinois federal jury Friday that prosecutors attempting to convict him of racketeering have painted an "incomplete and misleading" picture of a crooked politician at trial, but have failed to meet their burden to prove he ever acted with corrupt intent or engaged in a "this for that" exchange for his official action.
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January 24, 2025
Gov't Says Ukrainian Duo Should Get 15 Years For $25M Fraud
Prosecutors have asked a Florida federal court to sentence two Ukrainian men to 15½ years in prison after they pled guilty to laundering money from a hotel staffing scheme that the U.S. government said cost it $25 million in taxes.
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January 24, 2025
Tech Co. Founder Gets 2.5 Years In $14M Payroll Tax Case
A New Hampshire federal judge sentenced the founder of a technology startup to two and a half years in prison for failing to pay more than $14 million in employment and personal taxes, granting a request from prosecutors who said incarceration was the only meaningful sentence.
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January 24, 2025
GOP Sens. Propose Permanent Pass-Through Break
The 2017 federal tax law's pass-through deduction would be made permanent under legislation co-signed by more than half of the Senate's Republicans.
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January 24, 2025
IRS Says Athlete NIL Charity-Work Collective Not Tax-Exempt
An organization that pays college athletes from an unidentified university for the of use their names, images and likenesses in exchange for their participation in charity and educational events is not tax-exempt, the Internal Revenue Service said Friday.
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January 24, 2025
Law Students Scramble As Federal Gov't Yanks Job Offers
Law students across the country are scrambling to figure out their next steps after a range of federal agencies yanked job and internship offers this week because of the new hiring freeze imposed by the Trump administration.
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January 24, 2025
House Bill Would Repeal Stock Buyback Tax
The excise tax on stock buybacks would be repealed under legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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January 24, 2025
Hunter Biden Pans IRS Agents' Appeal To Enter Privacy Suit
Hunter Biden urged the D.C. Circuit to affirm a ruling preventing the IRS agents he has accused of improperly revealing his tax return information from intervening in his privacy suit against the U.S. government, saying the court should reject their claims about the importance of their participation.
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January 24, 2025
Taxation With Representation: Latham, Simpson Thacher
In this week's Taxation With Representation, a Brookfield private real estate fund acquires Divvy Homes' property portfolio and platform, Kantar Group proposes the sale of Kantar Media, and an Ares Management-led group buys a majority of Form Technologies Inc.'s common equity.
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January 24, 2025
Former Mass. Transit Facilities Engineer Admits $8.5M Fraud
A former facilities engineer for the private company that runs Massachusetts' commuter rail lines has pled guilty to defrauding his former employer of approximately $8.5 million through a pair of schemes and failing to report the funds on his income tax returns.
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January 24, 2025
Weekly Internal Revenue Bulletin
The Internal Revenue Service's weekly bulletin, issued Friday, included final regulations allowing an IRS supervisor to approve penalties anytime before the agency assess them as well as before it issues a preassessment notice subject to a U.S. Tax Court review, such as a deficiency notice.
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January 23, 2025
Madigan's Law Firm Profits Drove Corrupt Acts, Jury Told
Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's ownership interest in his Chicago law firm and his entitlement to 50% of its profits was behind his efforts to extort property tax business from developers who needed approvals from state and local government for their projects, prosecutors told an Illinois federal jury Thursday.
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January 23, 2025
Taiwan Double-Tax Relief Floated In Senate After House OK
The Senate Finance Committee introduced bipartisan legislation Thursday that would grant tax benefits to Taiwanese businesses in the U.S. and authorize the White House to negotiate a tax agreement with Taiwan, following the House of Representatives' approval of companion legislation.
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January 23, 2025
Tribe Member's Tax Debts Can Be Discharged, 10th Circ. Told
The Tenth Circuit should overturn a lower court's finding that a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation's tax debts did not qualify for a discharge from bankruptcy, he told the appeals court, saying the debts weren't based on his actual income.
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January 23, 2025
Corporate Transparency Law Remains Flanked By Threats
The Corporate Transparency Act is facing threats across the branches of government despite the U.S. Supreme Court pausing a nationwide injunction on it Thursday, with another universal injunction in place, other court battles underway and some Republican lawmakers targeting the law.
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January 23, 2025
New Reg Hurts Taxpayer's Penalty Argument, US Tells 5th Cir.
Final regulations clarifying that an Internal Revenue Service supervisor can approve tax penalties at any time before the agency issues a deficiency notice undermines an appellant's arguments in a tax dispute, the U.S. government told the Fifth Circuit.
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January 23, 2025
Robocall Schemer's Estate Agrees To Pay $4.3M In Payroll Tax
Federal prosecutors and the estate of a telemarketing company owner asked a Michigan federal judge to approve a consent judgment ordering the estate to pay $4.3 million of the company's outstanding employment taxes.
Expert Analysis
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Tariffs' Economic Downsides Outweigh Potential Revenue
Import tariffs proposed by the campaign of former president Donald Trump would generate revenue like other taxes, but policymakers must consider the net-negative impact of associated consumer and downstream-industry costs, harm to exporters, potential foreign retaliation and reduction in economic output, says Erica York at the Tax Foundation.
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Navigating The Last Leg Of The Worker Retention Tax Credit
Whether a business has applied for the pandemic-era employee retention tax credit, received a denial letter or is still considering making a claim before the April 15 deadline, it should examine recent developments significantly affecting the program before planning next steps, say attorneys at Nixon Peabody.
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How Cos. Can Build A Strong In-House Pro Bono Program
During this year’s pro bono celebration week, companies should consider some key pointers to grow and maintain a vibrant in-house program for attorneys to provide free legal services for the public good, says Mary Benton at Alston & Bird.
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Home Canning Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Making my own pickles and jams requires seeing a process through from start to finish, as does representing clients from the start of a dispute at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board through any appeals to the Federal Circuit, says attorney Kevin McNish.
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Use The Right Kind Of Feedback To Help Gen Z Attorneys
Generation Z associates bring unique perspectives and expectations to the workplace, so it’s imperative that supervising attorneys adapt their feedback approach in order to help young lawyers learn and grow — which is good for law firms, too, says Rachael Bosch at Fringe Professional Development.
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Congress Can And Must Enact A Supreme Court Ethics Code
As public confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court dips to historic lows following reports raising conflict of interest concerns, Congress must exercise its constitutional power to enact a mandatory and enforceable code of ethics for the high court, says Muhammad Faridi, president of the New York City Bar Association.
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What To Make Of Dueling Corporate Transparency Act Rulings
Although challenges to the Corporate Transparency Act abound — as highlighted by recent federal court decisions from Alabama and Oregon taking opposite positions on its constitutionality — the act is still law, so companies should comply with their filing requirements or face the potential consequences, say attorneys at Lowenstein Sandler.
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The Pop Culture Docket: Justice Lebovits On Gilbert And Sullivan
Characters in the 19th century comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan break the rules of good lawyering by shamelessly throwing responsible critical thought to the wind, providing hilarious lessons for lawyers and judges on how to avoid a surfeit of traps and tribulations, say acting New York Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits and law student Tara Scown.
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State Of The States' AI Legal Ethics Landscape
Over the past year, several state bar associations, as well as the American Bar Association, have released guidance on the ethical use of artificial intelligence in legal practice, all of which share overarching themes and some nuanced differences, say Eric Pacifici and Kevin Henderson at SMB Law Group.
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8 Childhood Lessons That Can Help You Be A Better Attorney
A new school year is underway, marking a fitting time for attorneys to reflect on some fundamental life lessons from early childhood that offer a framework for problems that no legal textbook can solve, say Chris Gismondi and Chris Campbell at DLA Piper.
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How The 2025 Tax Policy Debate Will Affect The Energy Sector
Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming U.S. election, 2025 will bring a major tax policy debate that could affect the energy sector more than any other part of the economy — so stakeholders who could be affected should be engaging now to make sure they understand the stakes, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.
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This Election, We Need To Talk About Court Process
In recent decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has markedly transformed judicial processes — from summary judgment standards to notice pleadings — which has, in turn, affected individuals’ substantive rights, and we need to consider how the upcoming presidential election may continue this pattern, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys
Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.