Joseph J. Thorndike is one of America's preeminent tax historians. How does the past foretell the future? What's next, after the election? In his words: "in fiscal policy, if necessity is the mother of invention, past experience is its father.” Together, tax law is born. He will explain how history can teach us the likely boundaries of change, although he speculates there can always be a tax Black Swan. What might that be? The success and failure of past proposals will provide you with insight into handicapping the likelihood of proposed changes, particularly nearly 2 weeks after our November national election, although like any horserace, the results can only be precisely predicted at the finish line.

Key topics include a discussion of --

• how big tax ideas become law, or failed to become law,
• the politics of income tax versus consumption tax (i.e. VAT), and
• why “who pays the tax” matters: the true cause of past tax revolutions, beyond the price of tea, and what past revolutions could mean for our future.

This session will explore various aspects of M&A transactions for privately held businesses focusing on common issues and opportunities faced by sellers of privately held businesses and steps that can be taken to mitigate tax gain and/or related exposures including Section 1202, negotiating seller gross ups, structuring for rollover deals with private equity buyers, minimization of state withholding on pass through entity sales, the application of Section 280G to sales of private businesses and mitigation steps, and planning for common closing date deductions in various deal scenarios.

Tax law requires qualified business income to be reduced by certain such as the self-employed health insurance and deductible portion of the self-employment tax along with qualified retirement plan contributions.  However, the application of the law is not well settled as guidance is incomplete.  Learn about the current status of these important reductions as well as the current status of the impact of the aggregation rules by listening to practitioners and IRS representatives discuss the current state of these critical adjustments. 

While COVID-19 tax legislation and related IRS guidance was a significant part of tax updates for 2020, there were also lots of important court cases decided and IRS regulations and rulings issued. This presentation covers the most important of these rulings involving income, deductions, losses, health care provisions, and procedural matters and their relevance to tax planning and compliance due diligence.

Multi-state taxation is often complex, and the recent COVID crisis only exacerbated the problem. We will work through a case study example addressing the topics of nexus, sourcing, taxability, exposure identification and remediation. We will also address protections still available to taxpayers.

This session will:

1. Share insights on the impact of recent data privacy legislation on organizations and tax practitioners and filers and the benefits of using the AICPA's Privacy Management Framework and GDPR mapping tools within your own firms, and with your clients and their employees.

2. Provide guidance to tax practitioners and others engaged in tax compliance on appropriate data privacy strategies, approaches, and control practices 

3. Offer suggestions to members of the profession on the added benefits to be gained by practicing and calling out your organization's safe data handling, integrity checking, and protection capabilities, policies, and controls. 

This topic will not go quietly. The GIG economy is of a particular concern. How many have begun their own businesses during the pandemic. Nexus is a concern.

How many are working from home for more than one source of income and will be considered having formed a new business. This session will discuss all these issues including retirement plans, some state and local tax issues and the home office deduction.

Statutory employee is back in the mix and will have to be discussed as part of this issue.

Section 199A and the availability of the 20% deduction.

All these items will be discussed and more.

Basis plays a critical role in the timing and the amount of gain or loss that a partnership or its partners recognize in a variety of transactions. This session will provide an overview of the concepts and differences among inside basis, outside basis, and capital accounts. We will also highlight the effects on basis resulting from certain events, including contributions, distributions, and transfers of partnership interests. This session will also cover optional (or possibly required) adjustments to basis resulting from a Section 754 election as well as the new tax capital reporting requirements for partnerships.

A 21% C corporation tax rate, together with Section 1202 capital gain exclusion, may be attractive, but is it the better deal? The consideration of entity choice for operations depends upon many factors, including shareholder marginal tax rate, expected exit strategy, health of the shareholder(s), and long-term expectations. Flexibility may be the most important factor. There is no overriding consideration that makes a particular entity type the obvious choice.