Federal

  • July 16, 2025

    Attys Tout 3 Real Estate Investment Wins In Federal Budget

    Real estate investors can breathe a collective sigh of relief seeing the final version of the "One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act" that President Donald Trump signed into law this month, as it is largely favorable to the industry and keeps several much-admired tax breaks alive.

  • July 16, 2025

    House Panel Urged To Modernize Tax Rules For Digital Assets

    Congress needs to create tax rules for digital assets such as cryptocurrency and nonfungible tokens because the current regime is burdensome for businesses and pushing development out of the U.S., industry representatives told a House Ways and Means Committee subcommittee Wednesday.

  • July 16, 2025

    OECD Mulling Tweaks To Arm's-Length Range Guidance

    The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's guidance on the arm's-length range is an area ripe for simplification because the resources needed to calculate and make adjustments to the range are sometimes out of proportion with the amount in dispute, an official said Wednesday.

  • July 16, 2025

    No Tax Refund For Uncashed Retirement Checks, IRS Says

    The Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday that an employer administering a retirement plan cannot get a tax refund or tax adjustment when it cuts a distribution check to an individual who had not made a withholding election and did not cash the check.

  • July 16, 2025

    Tax Losses Back Retired Prof's FBAR Penalties, US Says

    A retired professor's admission in U.S. Tax Court that his failure to report his foreign bank accounts caused tax losses shows that a California federal court should affirm tax penalties against him of more than $400,000, the U.S. government said.

  • July 16, 2025

    Speaker's Aide Won't Rule Out 'Secure 3.0' Retirement Bill

    An aide to House Speaker Mike Johnson told tax attorneys in Washington, D.C., Wednesday that he's not ruling out Congress passing a retirement policy overhaul that's known informally as Secure 3.0, though exact timing on such an effort remains unclear because of the busy year-end schedule.

  • July 16, 2025

    Cheesesteak Maker Gets 2 Mos. Sliced From Prison Sentence

    A member of the family behind the popular Tony Luke's cheesesteak shop in South Philadelphia was re-sentenced Wednesday to 18 months in prison, marking a two-month reduction of the original term he'd received for paying employees under the table.

  • July 15, 2025

    Trump Admin Seeks Win In Harvard $2B Funding Freeze Case

    The Trump administration urged a Massachusetts federal judge Monday to grant it summary judgment in Harvard University's lawsuit challenging the government's effort to freeze $2.2 billion in funding, arguing the dispute is a contract fight that belongs in the Federal Claims Court and the allegations fail on the merits.

  • July 15, 2025

    Trump Says US Has Struck Trade Deal With Indonesia

    President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that the U.S. has reached a trade deal with Indonesia that includes a 19% tariff on all goods exported by the Southeast Asian country to the U.S., while American goods exported there will be free of tariffs. 

  • July 15, 2025

    IRS Rates Dip Slightly In August After July Rebound

    Applicable federal rates for income tax purposes are set to decline in August, easing slightly after July's increases, the Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday.

  • July 15, 2025

    Tax Return Preparer Cops To Role In $25M Fraud Scheme

    A tax return preparer pled guilty in a California federal court for his role in a fraud scheme that involved submitting fake federal income tax returns to claim $25 million in refunds.

  • July 15, 2025

    Tax Court Warns Attys In Denying $20M Easement Deduction

    The U.S. Tax Court threatened Tuesday to force attorneys for a Georgia partnership to personally pay court costs after they had argued at trial for a $20 million tax deduction for a conservation easement donation, an amount the court said was over 100 times the land's value.

  • July 15, 2025

    Tax Court Denies Exclusion To Reduce Estate's Value

    The estate of one deceased spouse did not file its return in time for the estate of another deceased spouse to use an exclusion to reduce the value of the second estate, the U.S. Tax Court said in a decision Tuesday.

  • July 15, 2025

    Tax Court Denies Equitable Tolling To Firm In Collection Action

    A North Dakota law firm that convinced the U.S. Supreme Court three years ago that federal courts can extend equitable tolling for nonjurisdictional deadlines was not able to sway the U.S. Tax Court to extend the time for the firm to file a collection action case against the IRS, according to a bench opinion. 

  • July 15, 2025

    IRS Updates Corp. Bond Monthly Yield Curve For July

    The Internal Revenue Service updated Tuesday the corporate bond monthly yield curve used in calculations for defined benefit plans for July, as well as corresponding segment rates and other related provisions.

  • July 15, 2025

    IRS To Provide Transition Relief For Tips And OT Tax Breaks

    The IRS will provide guidance for new deductions for tips, overtime pay and car loan interest that will include transition relief for taxpayers claiming those deductions and employers subject to associated reporting requirements, according to a fact sheet released by the agency.

  • July 15, 2025

    These Firms Worked On The Top First-Half Real Estate Deals

    A&O Shearman and Stibbe are among the more than 20 law firms that scored work on the 10 largest global real estate mergers and acquisitions of the first half, a period that saw three transactions above $4 billion.

  • July 15, 2025

    IRS Issues 2026 Static Mortality Tables For Defined Plans

    The Internal Revenue Service released on Tuesday the updated static mortality tables to be used to calculate the funding target and other items for defined benefit pension plans during the 2026 calendar year.

  • July 15, 2025

    Booz Allen Urges DC Circ. To Affirm IRS Leak Sentence

    Government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton urged the D.C. Circuit to uphold the five-year prison sentence of its former employee for leaking tax returns while on a job at the IRS, saying the crime has hurt the company's reputation and subjected it to "baseless lawsuits."

  • July 15, 2025

    11th Circ. Told Tax Court Erred Nixing Easement's Values

    A Georgia partnership told the Eleventh Circuit that the U.S. Tax Court broke legal precedent by relying on a flawed valuation method that did not consider commercial mining potential when it denied a deduction tied to the conservation easement donation of a property.

  • July 15, 2025

    LA Deputies Admit Using Positions To Aid Crypto 'Godfather'

    Two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies admitted using their official positions to harass enemies of a cryptocurrency founder who called himself "The Godfather" and failed to report $36 million in income from selling hacked Meta business accounts, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

  • July 14, 2025

    EU Law Doesn't Shield Eaton Records, US Tells 6th Circ.

    The European Union's privacy law does not protect Eaton Corp. from having to disclose employee evaluation records in a transfer pricing dispute with the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. government told the Sixth Circuit on Monday.

  • July 14, 2025

    Tax Court Tosses $62M In Bogus Land Deductions

    The U.S. Tax Court slashed about $62 million in tax deductions claimed by four partnerships for donations of conservation easements in Georgia on Monday, saying the partnerships did not provide the required appraisals and grossly overstated the value of their donations.

  • July 14, 2025

    GOP Lawmakers Back USTR Probe Into Foreign Drug Pricing

    Republican members of Congress expressed support Monday for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's efforts against what the lawmakers referred to as anti-innovation policies abroad that, they said, require U.S. companies to take on the brunt of pharmaceutical research and development.

  • July 14, 2025

    Trump Threatens Tariffs On Russia Over Ukraine War

    President Donald Trump said Monday that Russia must end its war with Ukraine within the next 50 days or else the U.S. will levy "severe tariffs" on Russian goods entering the U.S.

Expert Analysis

  • Notable Q1 Updates In Insurance Class Actions

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    The first quarter of 2025 was filled with the refinement of old theories in the property and casualty space, including in vehicle valuation, time to seek appraisal and materials depreciation, says Mathew Drocton at BakerHostetler.

  • Power To The Paralegals: The Value Of Unified State Licensing

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    Texas' proposal to become the latest state to license paraprofessional providers of limited legal services could help firms expand their reach and improve access to justice, but consumers, attorneys and allied legal professionals would benefit even more if similar programs across the country become more uniform, says Michael Houlberg at the University of Denver.

  • 10 Soft Skills Every GC Should Master

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    As businesses face shifting regulatory and technological uncertainty, general counsel will need to strengthen certain soft skills to succeed, from admitting when they make a mistake to maintaining a healthy dose of dispassion, says Douglas Brown at Manatt.

  • An Unrestrained, Bright-Eyed View Of Legal AI's Future

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    Todd Itami at Covington offers a bright-eyed, laughing-all-the-way, skydive look at what the legal industry could look like after an artificial intelligence revolution, which he believes may happen much sooner and more dramatically than we expect.

  • Tracking The Evolution In Litigation Finance

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    Despite continued innovation, litigation finance remains an immature market with borrowers recieving significantly different terms as lenders learn to value cases, which firms need a strong handle on to ensure lending terms do not overwhelm collateral value, says Robert Wilkins at Lightfoot Franklin.

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: The Perils Of Digital Data Protocols

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    Though stipulated protocols governing the treatment of electronically stored information in litigation are meant to streamline discovery, recent disputes demonstrate that certain missteps in the process can lead to significant inefficiencies, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Maximizing Exemptions Before TCJA Rides Into The Sunset

    Excerpt from Practical Guidance
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    Individuals with taxable estates can optimize the benefits of estate planning strategies like spousal lifetime access trusts by setting them up before increases in estate and gift tax exemptions under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act sunset in January, say attorneys at Katten.

  • A Cold War-Era History Lesson On Due Process

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    The landmark Harry Bridges case from the mid-20th century Red Scare offers important insights on why lawyers must be free of government reprisal, no matter who their client is, says Peter Afrasiabi at One LLP.

  • How BigLaw Executive Orders May Affect Smaller Firms

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    Because of the types of cases they take on, solo practitioners, small law firms and public interest attorneys may find themselves more dramatically affected by the collective impact of recent government action involving the legal industry than even the BigLaw firms named in the executive orders, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • Lawsuits Shouldn't Be Shadow Assets For Foreign Capital

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    Third-party litigation financing amplifies inefficiencies from litigation and facilitates national exposure to foreign influence in the U.S. justice system, so full disclosure of financing arrangements should be required as a matter of institutional integrity, says Roland Eisenhuth at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

  • How To Accelerate Your Post-Attorney Career Transition

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    Professionals seeking to transition to nonattorney careers may encounter skepticism as nontraditional candidates, but there are opportunities for thought leadership and to leverage speaking and writing to accelerate a post-attorney career transition, say Janet Falk at Falk Communications and Evgeny Efremkin at Toronto Metropolitan University.

  • Tariffs And FCA Create Perfect Storm For Importers

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    The Trump administration's aggressive tariff policies pose a high risk to certain importation practices that are particularly likely to trigger False Claims Act enforcement, say attorneys at Jeffer Mangels.

  • US Reassessment Of OECD Tax Deal Is Right Move

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    The wholesale U.S. reevaluation of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's global tax deal ordered by President Donald Trump is a positive step that could ultimately create a more durable international tax system, says Anne Gordon at the National Foreign Trade Council.

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