Crackdown on Tax Shelters: Current Enforcement Efforts & Calls For Reform.

Mondaq Business Briefing, September, 2002

By Keith R. Gercken, Michael Richman

INTRODUCTION

Although the topic of corporate tax shelters has become much more prominent since the beginning of 2002, the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service have become increasingly focused over the past several years on what they believe to be an unacceptable and growing level of tax avoidance behavior. The most recent legislative attempt to deter the proliferation of tax shelter transactions came in 1997 when Congress passed legislation putting into place enhanced registration and penalty requirements relating to certain specified tax-motivated transactions. Following the Treasury's promulgation of implementing regulations in February 2000, the tax shelter rules generally require that (i) tax shelter...