Resident of special assessment district in San Diego brought a legal challenge to assessed taxes. The court held that San Diego's failure to publicly disclose how they calculated city's park assessments deprived the property owners an opportunity to review and challenge such assessment when they vote for it. Courtesy of metnews.com.

Individual taxpayer ("TP") was found liable for $3M in income taxes. TP held most of the shares of an S Corp, received large income from it, and deposited $700K of personal funds in corp. account. IRS issued a summons to bank for S Corp's account information. TP and S Corp objected saying they were entitled to notice under 26 U.S.C. § 7609. Ninth Circuit held: An assessed taxpayer is disqualified from notice per § 7609(c)(2)(D)(i). S Corp. was disqualified from notice because of TP's large interest in S Corp.

In the recent decision of Ardon v. City of Los Angeles, Case number S174507, the California Supreme Court held: taxpayers may file class action claims against a municipal government for refund of local taxes, pursuant to Section 910 of the California Government Code.

In this case, the California Supreme Court held "that article I, section 16 of the California Constitution does not require a jury trial in a statutory action for a state income tax refund." [Advance sheet courtesy of metnews.com]

Thought provoking article on how tax policy may soon drive out America's wealthiest individuals. With just 5% of the population paying most of the taxes in the US and our society becoming increasingly mobile, the threat is quite real.

Employees sued their employer's accounting firm for issuing W-2 forms that over-stated the employees' income. This California Court held that CPAs did not owe a duty of care to client's employees, because there was no privity of contract between CPAs and client's employees, there are no allegations that CPAs generated the inflated numbers, or that CPAs were employed to verify that the accounting information was correct.

Most civilized nations do not criminalize noncompliance with the tax code. The U.S. and China are exceptions. In China, tax evasion still carries the death penalty, although that may soon change.

The IRS has finally begun ramping up enforcement efforts. The agency is now hiring thousands of revenue agents, collection and enforcement agents.

Recent revelations that this tiny island nation has been cooperating with US authorities should not worry Americans and others who choose the Isle of Man as their asset protection haven. The government has signalled it will not tolerate Isle of Man trusts being used to dodge taxes. Other forms of asset protection are still recognized and virgorously enforced by Manx courts.

In this recent decision, the United States Supreme Court held: Under the comity doctrine, a taxpayer’s complaint of allegedlydiscriminatory state taxation, even when framed as a request to in-crease a competitor’s tax burden, must proceed originally in state court.