Law Commons^™

When Does A Settlement Become Binding On A Party In The Tax Court, T. Keith Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

Fogg Book Problems At The Irs In Attempting To Provide Service To Taxpayers Tax Notes March 14 2016 1335.Pdf, T. Keith Fogg, Leslie M. Book

T. Keith Fogg

How Can Tax Collection Be Structured To Observe And Preserve Taxpayer Rights: A Discussion Of Practices And Possibilities, T. Keith Fogg, Sime Jozipovic

T. Keith Fogg

Tax Court Decisions "Shall Be Made As Quickly As Practicable" - A Discussion Of Bench Opinions, T. Keith Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

Keith Fogg discusses the legal and practical bases of bench opinions, what causes the Tax Court to issue bench opinions and how they differ from other decisions of the court.

Does The Failure To Timely Issue Notice And Demand Impact The Underlying Assessment Rather Than The Just Liens Or Levies?, T. Keith Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

This article analyzes the impact a failure to send notice and demand might have on the validity of an assessment.

Tax Issues Facing Clients Of Legal Services, T. Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

This article seeks to highlight tax issues facing clients of legal services. It discusses several specific issues that routinely arise. The article also discusses some of the challenges facing attorneys within legal services that take on a tax clinic and offers some advice on how to address those challenges.

A Calendar Call Staffing Success Story, T. Keith Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

This short article appeared in 33(2) ABA Section of Taxation NewsQuarterly (Winter 2014), p. 13.

Practice Before The Irs After The Restructuring And Reform Act, T. Keith Fogg, Robert E. Lee

T. Keith Fogg

No abstract provided.

What Is A Return -- The Long Slow Fight In The Bankruptcy Courts, T. Keith Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

This article examines what constitutes a return within the context of a bankruptcy for purposes of allowing a taxpayer to discharge the tax debt.

Go West: How The Irs Should Foster Innovation In Its Agents, T. Keith Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

No abstract provided.

Meeting Leads To Changes To Certain Practices In The Tax Court, T. Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

This article covers a meeting of the ABA Taxation section's Pro Bono members, Tax Court judges, the National Taxpayer Advocate, and representatives from the IRS Office of Chief Counsel. The group discussed a wide range of issues that impact pro se petitioners, who file almost 70% of the Tax Court's cases.

An Access To Justice Milestone, T. Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

Short article on agreements between Low income tax clinics and the Tax Courts for pro se individuals to receive correspondence offering the opportunity of free legal services from a tax clinic.

Book Review: A Practitioner's Guide To Tax Evidence, T. Keith Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

This is a book review of Joni Larson's book: A Practitioner's Guide to Tax Evidence (ABA 2013). It begins: "Professor Joni Larson has done a great service for all Tax Court practitioners."

Taxation With Representation: The Creation And Development Of Low-Income Taxpayer Clinics, T. Keith Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

This article provides a chronological history of low-income tax clinics in the United States from their inception in 1974 to the present. It discusses leaders in the tax clinic movement such as Stuart Filler, Janet Spragens and Nina Olson and their impact on the growth of tax clinics. In addition to individual leaders, several institutions played significant roles in shaping the development of tax clinics. Tax clinics developed parallel to and then in conjunction with legal service corporation offices and academic clinics. The article discusses the growth of tax clinics within the broader growth of poverty law and the academic …

Financial Disability For All, T. Keith Fogg, Rachel E. Zuraw

T. Keith Fogg

The Internal Revenue Code has four discreet sections that allow late filing of claims and other documents under the circumstances described in those sections. The IRS has promulgated a procedural regulation that allows it to permit late elections under prescribed circumstances. Neither the Code sections nor the Regulation cover all of the circumstances in which taxpayers have a good excuse for missing a time frame. The current provisions have developed in an ad hoc manner. More ad hoc development of this area is possible as equitable tolling litigation seeks to open up time frames under the Code despite the efforts …

Low-Income Taxpayer Clinicians Meet With Service Representatives, T. Keith Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

This short article appeared in 31(4) ABA Section of Taxation NewsQuarterly (Summer 2012), p. 16.

Systemic Problems With Low-Dollar Lien Filing, T. Keith Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

This article explains why the IRS policy of filing the notice of federal tax lien based primarily on a dollar criteria puts low-income taxpayers, who usually have low-dollar liens, in a worse position. It also proposes improvements on the current system.

Tax Court Collection Due Process Cases Take Too Long, T. Fogg, Carlton Smith

T. Keith Fogg

This report documents through Tax Court records the time it takes to complete CDP cases versus non-CDP cases and then offers solutions to what the authors perceive as a problem with the system. Because of the nature of CDP cases, the solutions focus on the administrative record preceding litigation. They do not stop with early introduction of the administrative record during the Tax Court proceeding, but also concern summary judgment in situations when the administrative record reveals no factual conflict. Delays in collection hurt the IRS's ability to collect while decreasing the taxpayer's ability to climb out of the financial …

Transparency In Private Collection Of Federal Taxes, T. Keith Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

Most federal taxes are collected from taxpayers by business entities, held in a public trust for the United States, and then paid over to the Internal Revenue Service (the IRS). While the vast majority of business entities pay over the taxes held in trust in a timely and appropriate manner, a sizeable amount, in dollar terms, does not get paid. The amount of unpaid "collected" taxes in 2008 created a $58 billion tax gap item.

Disclosure law governing federal taxes defaults to non-disclosure for most tax returns. This general rule of non-disclosure governs the returns reporting the taxes collected by …

In Whom We Trust, Temple K. Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

The Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") collects the majority of taxes through business entities that are required to withhold taxes from wages or collect excise taxes at the time of providing services. These business entities hold the taxes they collect in trust for the IRS. The wast majority of business entities pay over the taxes held in trust in a timely and appropriate manner; however, a sizeable amount, in dollar terms, does not get paid. Aside from passing criminal laws at or near the passage of the 1954 code, Congress has done little to create a structure that provides incentives for …

Viewpoints: Collection Due Process Hearings Should Be Expedited, T. Keith Fogg, Carlton M. Smith

T. Keith Fogg

In this article, the authors argue that the collection due process hearings have failed in their objective of expediting cases and recommend creating stricter time-frame guidelines for CDP hearings.

Leaving Money On The Table And Providing An Incentive Not To Pay -- The Story Of A Flawed Collection Device, Temple K. Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

As of September 30, 2007, the IRS had $282-billion of unpaid assessments on its books. Of that amount $58-billion, over 20 percent, represents the unpaid payroll taxes due from employers. The majority of payroll taxes due from employers results from income and social security taxes collected by the employer and held in trust for the government. Internal Revenue Code section 6672 ("6672") gives the government the right to pierce the corporate veil to pursue collection of these payroll taxes. Because it creates personal liability, 6672 can serve as a powerful tool in the fight against the growing tax gap.

Unfortunately, …

Shelf Project: Amended Returns -- Imposing A Duty To Correct Material Mistakes, T. Keith Fogg, Calvin H. Johnson

T. Keith Fogg

The amended returns proposal would create a duty for a taxpayer to correct material factual errors on its tax return when the error is discovered. Failure to correct an erroneous but innocent representation is considered to be a form of deceit in American tort and contract law.

Shelf Project: National Tax Lien Registry, T. Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

The current system for filing a notice of federal tax lien came into existence before the electronic age. It relies on myriad state laws and the filing of notices in localities more than 4,100 in all. The current system hurts both the IRS and taxpayers by requiring multiple filings and, thus, multiple removals when the underlying obligation is paid or discharged. With increasing complexity comes increasing costs and errors for the IRS, taxpayers, and taxpayers' creditors. A single Web-based system would be cheaper and more efficient. That possibility drives this recommendation.