Abusive Tax Shelters

The Ferraro Law Firm
Washington D.C. — Miami, Florida

Whether you work in the investment banking industry or in the tax and accounting department of a multinational conglomerate, hiring a lawyer and stepping forward with information about an individual or corporate taxpayer’s participation in an abusive tax shelter could enable you to receive a significant portion of recovered taxes and penalties under the IRS' new tax whistleblower statute.

If you have information about an individual or corporation's abusive tax shelter practices, contact The Ferraro Law Firm to speak to attorneys with experience in all aspects of tax shelter controversies.

The Ferraro Law Firm represents U.S. and foreign citizens in reporting large-scale tax underpayments to the IRS. Many of these underpayments are a result of abusive tax shelter practices and the use of questionable transactions with little or no business purpose.

If you have been approached by a tax shelter promoter you may have a tax whistleblower claim. Even if you or your company did not "invest" in the tax shelter, your information about the proposed transaction and the promoter could help the IRS identify taxpayers who did "invest." Do not let your potential award go unclaimed.

Below are some of the more common tax shelter and transactional abuses engaged in by corporations and wealthy individuals identified by the IRS. This list is not the last word on abusive tax shelters, if you have information on new transactions, even transactions that were not ultimately implemented, contact us. The listed transactions include:

• Certain accelerated deductions for contributions to a qualified cash or deferred arrangement or matching contributions to a defined contribution plan
• Certain trusts purported to be multiple employer welfare funds exempted from the lists of §§ 419 and 419A
• Transactions similar to that described in the ASA Investerings litigation and in ACM Partnership v. Commissioner
• Transactions involving the distributions of encumbered property in which losses claimed for capital outlays have been recovered (aka BOSS transactions)
• Fast pay or step-down preferred transactions
• Debt straddles
• Inflated partnership basis transactions (aka Son of Boss transactions)
• Stock compensation transactions
• Guam trust
• Intermediary transactions
• §302 Basis-shifting transactions
• Inflated basis "CARDS" transactions
• Notional principal contracts
• Partnership straddle tax shelter
• Lease in / lease out (aka LILO) transactions
• Abuses associated with S-corp ESOPs
• Offshore deferred compensation arrangements
• Certain trust arrangements seeking to qualify for exception for collectively bargained welfare benefit funds under § 419A(f)(5)
• Transfers of compensatory stock options to related persons
  
• Accounting for lease strips and other stripping transactions
• Improper use of contested liability trusts to attempt to accelerate deductions for contested liabilities under IRC 461(f)
• Offsetting foreign currency option contracts
• Abusive Roth IRA transactions
• Prohibited allocations of securities in an S- corporation
• Abusive transactions involving insurance policies in IRC 412(i) retirement plans
• Abusive foreign tax credit transactions
• S-corporation tax shelter fraud involving shifting income to tax exempt organization
• Intercompany financing through partnerships
• Sale-in lease-out (aka SILO) transactions

Confidential Consultations, Nationwide Practice — 1-800-275-3332

Do you have information regarding tax underpayment but have you not come forward because you are worried about the possible disclosure of your identity? Contact the Washington D.C. or Miami, Florida, area offices of The Ferraro Law Firm to arrange a confidential and discrete consultation with one of our tax lawyers.

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