By Eric P. Rothenberg, Esq. – August 15, 2014 – According to today’s Boston Globe, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was able to get a federal judge to close down a company taking advantage of taxpayers needing tax relief from their debts to the IRS and state revenue agencies. American Tax Relief is giving back $16 Million to over 18,000 clients for making false promises to them. The FTC said American Tax Relief brought in over $100 Million charging individual taxpayers between $3,200 to $25,000. Not only did the owners of American Tax Relief have to give up all their assets, even the owner’s parents had to give up condominiums, jewelry and money. The FTC alleged that the company did not gather sufficient information from consumers to know whether they would be likely to qualify for either an Offer in Compromise or a penalty abatement. The FTC said not to

By Eric P. Rothenberg, Esq. – The difficulty for a partner to deduct their own out-of-pocket expenses, not paid for by their partnership, was recently outlined well by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in McLauchlan v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue [citation omitted and decided March 6, 2014].  These situations come up often with RE brokers, attorneys, CPAs, and other professional partnerships. Many partnership agreements are quite specific about what expenses the partner may seek to have the partnership reimburse them.  These include common costs we expect such as use of car, cell phone, meals, entertainment and continuing education. These can add up to a lot of money. But there are often even less common expenses such as contract labor [commercial RE brokers often hire financial consultants to provide reports to the buyers and can be paid a percentage of the fee, hourly, or even a flat fee and these