The Maggard v. Commissioner Tax Court Opinion S Corporations are required to have one class of stock. In this article, the author discusses the recent Maggard v. Commissioner U.S. Tax Court opinion and addresses whether a disproportionate distribution violates the one class of stock requirement. In any financial analysis of a company, we must consider potential tax liabilities. Since many small businesses o ...

of a Tax Loss Target Company Acquisition This article summarizes the factors that acquirers—and their valuation and other financial advisers—should consider when structuring an M&A transaction that involves a target corporation with such income tax attributes. Introduction Valuation analysts and other financial advisers (collectively, analysts) are often retained to advise acquisitive clients with regar ...

The Court Opens to Tax-Affecting In Estate of Jones, the court addressed the tax affecting issue along with several other issues discussed in the valuation world today, including the proper approach for valuing an operating timber business (income vs. asset-based), the reliability of management projections, and the appropriate discount for lack of marketability. For the first time in 20 years, a valuation e ...

For When a Client Wants to Sell Their Business The authors in this article share a checklist developed and provided to firm clients contemplating a sell of their business. Following are the steps involved when a client wants to sell their business. Buyers can also use this list as a timeline and road map of the steps that are expected to occur and what is expected of them. ❏  Be sure client wants to se ...

April 2019 In the first quarter of 2019, there were no reported U.S. Tax Court cases involving either business, estate, or FLP valuation issues. Notwithstanding the above, there were several cases that valuation and litigation support professionals will want to consider. In this article, five recent cases are discussed. One of the leading cases circulating amongst the business valuation community is Kress v ...

Underlying Policy Identified The pass-through entity, that legal entity structure that has given valuators consternation over the years, is back in the news thanks to the Tax Cut and Jobs Acts (TCJA) signed into law at the end of 2017. According to the Joint Commission on Taxation, business owners filed 35.3 million pass-through returns in 2015. Another 1.6 million returns were file by C corporations. The T ...

To a Key Employee—Part II of II In this second part, the author provides readers an illustration of the decision-making and allocation issues. These include issuing options, phantom stock, and converting the existing entity. Read Part I here. ...

Insights for Your Practice Four cases are presented in this article that provide valuation, litigation support professionals, and M&A advisors insight regarding how courts are addressing damages claims, challenges to experts, appraisal action challenges, and claims of fraud and breach of contract in connection with M&A transactions. Although the cases are from Delaware and California, they provide i ...

Challenging and Defending Compensation and Use of the Independent Investor Test C corporations and S corporations should pay shareholder/executive compensation based on the fair market value of the executive services rendered—or risk being audited and possibly penalized by the Internal Revenue Service. Forensic analysts can help companies determine reasonable shareholder/executive compensation using free or ...

Negotiating, Structuring, and Reaping the Reward The authors share their views on what business owners should consider doing in anticipation of selling their business. The authors also share structuring considerations to close the transaction and reap the reward. ...

Income of Partners and Owners of Pass-through Entities (Part II of II) This is the second part of a two-part article where the author discusses the methodology for assessing the lost earning capacity of a self-employed person. This article provides an overview for analyzing the lost earning capacity of the self-employed and discusses why this category of work provides unique assessment situations. In this s ...

Income of Partners and Owners of Pass-through Entities (Part I of II) This is a two-part article where the author discusses the methodology for assessing the lost earning capacity of a self-employed person. This, basically, is the same as that for a traditional wage and salary worker. Even though the methodology is the same, assessing the data for the self-employed is different. The loss calculations are no ...

Income Recognition, Deferrals, and Methods Valuation professionals that provide either consulting or tax reporting services will encounter taxpayers with unique questions regarding what income to report. This article provides CPAs and consulting professionals with an overview of what to report and why. ...

The Ongoing Research and Analysis Relating to the S Corporation Valuation Puzzle What premium, if any, should S Corporations command? How reliable are the current models? How reliable is the evidence that supports the position of the leading U.S. Tax Court cases? What should valuation analysts and consultants consider as they advise newly formed corporations considering making the S election and S corporati ...

Background and Objectives of the Job Aid (Part 3 of 3) In the third article of this three part series, the author discusses the remaining portions of the Job Aid, specifically, the Discussion and Analysis Section of the Job Aid which addresses: Evidence-Based Valuation Analysis, Theory-Based Valuation Analysis, and Weighting of Factors and Approaches and shares his views on the value and limits of this docu ...

Background and Objectives of the Job Aid (Part 2 of 3) In the first of this three-part series, the leading cases involving tax-affecting where analyzed; those cases discussed included: Gross, Wall, Heck, Adams, Dallas, Gallagher, Korbel, and Guistina. This second part analyzes the first two parts of the Job Aid by section, the “Executive Summary” and first three subsections of the “Discussion and Analysis”, ...

When Using Guideline Transaction Data Income taxes play a major role in the pricing and structure of business transactions because income tax consequences associated with the sale or purchase of a business can substantially reduce the seller’s net proceeds and/or lower the net cost of a purchased ownership interest to the buyer. Because of this issue, it seems appropriate to assume that actual transactions ...

Background and Objectives of the Job Aid (Part 1 of 3) The release of this series of Job Aids has been hailed by many as a new era of communication and understanding between the Internal Revenue Service, taxpayers, and practitioners. However, in the opinion of this author, and others, releasing these additional documents in such a formal manner seems to be an attempt to influence practitioner behaviors in s ...

Benefit or Boondoggle? Is the S corporation premium defensible? In this article, the author shares her views on this matter by answering the following questions: Should there be a premium applied to the S corporation whose value has been determined relative to the publicly traded C data by which it has been valued?” Are the assumptions we use to compare S and C attributes reasonable? Do they make sense? If ...

With Commentary by Original IRS Champion Leading valuation practitioners have proposed various models to guide practitioners valuing controlling and non-controlling interests. The published Tax Court cases—precedents—have favored the position of the IRS. The author suggests that is not surprising. In a soon-to-be released book, Michael Gregory highlights the importance of a new Job Aid focused on valuation ...