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US Tax Court, T.C. Memo. 2012-8, Jan. 10, 2012: A charitable organization’s contribution acknowledgment letter that omitted items of value the taxpayer received in consideration was not a valid acknowledgment letter, the taxpayer did not act reasonably in relying on the letter, and therefore the taxpayer could not take a deduction for the contribution. A taxpayer-donor claiming [...] US Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit, No. 11-2078, February 8, 2012: Upholds the Tax Court decision that value of house donated to fire department on condition it be destroyed did not exceed the fair market value of the benefit the taxpayer received in return by house’s destruction. The opinion upholds the decision of the Tax Court in [...] US Tax Court, 2012 TC Memo 35, February 6, 2012: Determines fair market value of conservation easement by analyzing highest and best use and comparable sales, rejecting taxpayers’ claim that highest and best use was other than the properties’ present use. At issue was the value of property before donation of conservation easements donated as qualified conservation [...] US Tax Court, T.C. Memo. 2012-1, January 3, 2012: Colorado conservation easement extinguishable by mutual consent of the parties does not guarantee protection in perpetuity under state law as required by Internal Revenue Code. Petitioners (Carpenter) sought a federal qualified conservation contribution tax deduction for a conservation easement granted to a charitable nonprofit that the IRS agreed [...] The Internal Revenue Service publishes a “Conservation Easement Audit Techniques Guide” online at http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=249135,00.html#_Toc223. The publication was last revised September 30, 2011, and last reviewed by the IRS November 22, 2011. The Guide begins with a table of contents in hypertext linked to the chapters of the Guide, reproduced below. In addition to summaries of the many requirements of [...] Dist. Court, D. Idaho, CIV. 1:10-186 WBS, August 29, 2011: Orders production of landowner’s attorneys’ documents related to appraisal of conservation easement value, in suit by landowner against US. The Peskys donated a conservation easement to The Nature Conservancy in 2002. The IRS refused their claim for a qualified conservation contribution tax deduction and assessed a deficiency. [...] Court of Appeals of Colorado, Division VII, No. 10CA1006, August 18, 2011: Affirms district court order requiring state to disclose records about an investigation of conservation easements appraisals used to obtain Colorado tax credits. The Colorado Division of Real Estate and the Board of Real Estate Appraisers (collectively the Board), in connection with a statewide investigation of [...] US Tax Court, 2011 TC Memo 153, June 29, 2011: Tax deduction for conservation easement donated to county denied because owner-county conditional settlement agreement calling for donation was not an “acknowledgment” of the donated property as required by Internal Revenue Code section 170(f)(8). The taxpayer settled a dispute with the county government by entering into a settlement [...] US Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, No. 10-1063, June 21, 2011: upheld the US Tax Court 2009 ruling in Simmons v. Commissioner, that a historic preservation façade easement was granted in perpetuity even if it allowed the Grantee to consent to façade changes and did not spell out what would happen to the easement [...] US Tax Court, T.C. Memo. 2011-84, April 12, 2011: Denies preservation easement tax deduction because local law already protects property and because mortgage subordination reserves insurance and condemnation proceeds priority to lender. The taxpayer/petitioner donated a façade easement and “unused development rights” (UDRs) to Trust for Architectural Easements (formerly known as National Architectural Trust) on a townhouse [...] US Tax Court, 136 T.C. No. 13, April 4, 2011: On reconsideration, the US Tax Court affirms its previous decision saying that for a preservation easement to be eligible for a tax deduction, the holder of the easement must have an absolute right to a portion of proceeds from a sale after extinguishment of the easement. [...] 2011 TC Memo 71, March 28, 2011: Upholds IRS disallowance of façade easement tax deduction because the “Preservation and Conservation Easement Agreement” between the taxpayer and the donee did not satisfy the Internal Revenue Code requirement for a contemporaneous written acknowledgment of the gift from the donee — it did not state whether the donee provided [...] The Nonprofit Law Prof Blog reported March 8 that “In Private Letter Ruling 201109030 (Dec. 8, 2010), released on March 4 … the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) revoked the federal income tax exemption of an organization … [that] received donations of five conservation easements…” Each easement area was inappropriate in some significant way. The [...] T.C. Memo. 2010-283; No. 14374-08, December 27, 2010: Tax Court creates its own appraisal of the value of a conservation easement using the before-and-after method; considers evidence of lot sales after the date the easement was donated.
The taxpayer argued that only the comparable sales appraisal method could be used because data on sales of comparables conservation [...] United States Tax Court, 135 T.C. No. 24, Nov. 4, 2010: Affirms, based on a quid pro quo benefit that exceeded the donation, the IRS denial of a charitable deduction by Petitioner Rolfs for his gift to the local fire department of a house (but not the land on which it was located) for the express [...] United States Tax Court, No. 8309-08, September 22, 2010: The TC upheld the IRS’ complete denial of a deduction for a historic façade easement but denied the IRS’ accuracy-related penalty. The taxpayer offered appraisals by two different appraisers but the preparers of only one of the appraisals testified as witnesses. The TC thoroughly discredited the appraisal prepared [...] United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, No. 09-60085, August 10, 2010: Decides several issue about the deductibility and appraisal of a façade easement’s affect on the value of a building owned in common with the building being protected, vacating the Tax Court’s 2008 decision and remanding for further proceedings. Taxpayer Whitehouse (“W”) owned the contiguous [...] United States Tax Court, no. 15171-08, July 14, 2010: Holds (a) a mandatory cash payment by taxpayers to a façade easement grantee was not a “contribution or gift” under Income Tax Regulation 1.170A because taxpayers did not sustain their burden of proving either that the payment was not made as a quid pro or, if they [...] The amicus briefs of National Trust for Historic Preservation and Trust for Architectural Easements supporting a rehearing in Kaufman v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue are available. The key issue is whether a mortgage holder’s priority claim on casualty insurance and condemnation proceeds causes a “conservation restriction” to lose its status as perpetual (under IRS regs) notwithstanding [...] U.S. Tax Court, 134 T.C. No. 9, April 26, 2010 The Tax Court rejected a deduction for a façade easement that was subordinate to a mortgage, but denied the IRS summary judgment as to whether a companion cash contribution was a conditional gift. Because the superior mortgagee would have a prior claim to condemnation and insurance proceeds, [...] |
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