Mark Allison Comments on Tax Court Decision

Caplin & Drysdale's Mark D. Allison spoke with CCH's Federal Tax Weekly and offered the takeaways below concerning a recent U.S. Tax Court decision. The court agreed with the IRS in that taxpayers forfeit the protection of attorney-client privilege on tax opinion letters from a law firm if they seek to avoid accuracy-related penalties by asserting affirmative defenses of good faith and state of mind. For the full article, please click on the above link and go to page 195.

Excerpt taken from the article.

CCH Take Away. "The decision is an important reminder of the consequences of injecting the taxpayer's knowledge and belief into a proceeding, whether or not relying on privileged information," Mark Allison, member, Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered, New York, told CCH. "The Tax Court has now made it clear, if it was at all ambiguous previously, that once the door is opened by the taxpayer the court will open it all the way."