Taxpayers who have already claimed the purported tax benefits of one of these four transactions should consider taking corrective steps, including filing an amended return and seeking advice from a qualified tax professional. Where appropriate, the IRS will challenge the purported tax benefits from the transactions on this list and may assert accuracy-related penalties. Further, to combat the evolving variety of these potentially abusive transactions, the IRS created the Office of Promoter Investigations (OPI), which will take advantage of a variety of ways to find potentially abusive transactions, including examinations, promoter investigations, whistleblower claims, data analytics, and reviewing marketing materials.
We all need to watch out for – and avoid – schemes, many of which are now promoted online, that promise tax savings that are too good to be true and put us in a legally compromising position.