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Are Alleged Alter Egos, Successors in Interest and/or Transferees Entitled to Their Own Collection Due Process Rights Under Sections 6320 and 6330? Part 4

December 3, 2018

Original appeared in Procedurally Taxing

This post looks at the question of how a putative alter ego, successor in interest or transferee of a taxpayer might pursue litigation in the Tax Court to raise the question of whether they are entitled to Collection Due Process (“CDP”) rights under §§6330 and 6320 of the Code, independent of the rights of the original taxpayer who incurred the liability. This discussion assumes, of course, that the IRS has the legal ability to pursue administrative collection action against a putative alter ego or successor in interest of the taxpayer, without first obtaining a judgment in District Court or without first making a separate assessment against the third party under section 6901.   As is explained in Part 3 of this series, such an assumption may not be correct.

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Are alleged alter egos, successors in interest and/or transferees entitled to their own collection due process rights under sections 6320 and 6330? Part 3

June 5, 2018

Original appeared in Procedurally Taxing

At the end of Part 2 of this series, I raised the question of whether In re Pitts, 515 B.R. 317 (C.D. Cal. 2014), aff’d, 688 F. App’x 774 (9th Cir. 2016) was decided correctly. The Pitts court held that the IRS may take administrative collection action against a general partner of a general partnership to collect employment taxes incurred by the partnership, without making a separate assessment against the general partner. The court held that the general partner is a “person liable for the tax” for purposes of section 6321 because the general partner is liable for the partnership’s employment taxes under California law. Notably, California law, like the laws of all other states, provides that a general partner of a general partnership is personally liable for all partnership debts.

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Are alleged alter egos, successors in interest and/or transferees entitled to their own collection due process rights under sections 6320 and 6330? Part 2

March 23, 2018

Original appeared in Procedurally Taxing

In Part 1 of this series of blog posts, I explained how the relevant statutes and regulations, together with the rationale of the Court deciding Pitts v. United Statesin favor of the IRS, support the conclusion that persons/entities who are alleged by the IRS to be the alter ego, successor in interest, and/or transferee of the party who incurred the tax liability (“original taxpayer”) are entitled to their own independent Collection Due Process (“CDP”) rights under §§ 6320 and 6330 of the Code. In the present blog post, I explain why I believe that the IRS is speaking out of both sides of its mouth when it denies alleged alter egos, successors in interest, and transferees their own independent CDP rights under §§ 6320 and 6330.

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Are Alleged Alter Egos, Successors In Interest and/or Transferees Entitled to their Own CDP Rights?

February 27, 2018

Original appeared in Procedurally Taxing

Introduction

This blog post is the first in a short series of blog posts addressing the question of whether the IRS has been violating the Collection Due Process (“CDP”) procedures since they became effective in January of 1999 by refusing to extend CPD rights to alleged alter egos, successors in interest and/or transferees of the person/entity who/which incurred the tax, i.e., the original “taxpayer,” where no separate assessment has been made against the alleged alter ego, successor in interest and/or transferee. 

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