For households and individuals, gross income is the sum of all wages, salaries, profits, interest payments, rents, and other forms of earnings, before any deductions or taxes. It is opposed to net income, defined as the gross income minus taxes and other deductions.
The United States federal government and most state governments impose an income tax. They are determined by applying a tax rate, which may increase as income increases, to taxable income, which is the total income less allowable deductions. Income is broadly defined. Individuals and corporations are directly taxable, and estates and trusts may be taxable on undistributed income. Partnerships are not taxed, but their partners are taxed on their shares of partnership income. Residents and citizens are taxed on worldwide income, while nonresidents are taxed only on income within the jurisdiction. Several types of credits reduce tax, and some types of credits may exceed tax before credits. Most business expenses are deductible. Individuals may deduct certain personal expenses, including home mortgage interest, state taxes, contributions to charity, and some other items. Some deductions are subject to limits, and an Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) applies at the federal and some state levels.
A structured sale or structured installment sale, is a special type of installment sale pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code. In an installment sale, the seller defers recognition of gain on the sale of a business or real estate to the tax year in which the related sale proceeds are received. In a structured sale, the seller is able to pay U.S. Federal income tax over time while having the seller's right to receive those payments guaranteed by a high credit quality alternate obligor. This obligor assumes the buyer's periodic payment obligation. Transactions can be arranged for amounts as small as $100,000.
For federal income tax purposes, the doctrine of constructive receipt is used to determine when a cash-basis taxpayer has received gross income. A taxpayer is subject to tax in the current year if he or she has unfettered control in determining when items of income will or should be paid. Unlike actual receipt, constructive receipt does not require physical possession of the item of income in question.
Tax protesters in the United States have advanced a number of arguments asserting that the assessment and collection of the federal income tax violates statutes enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by the President. Such arguments generally claim that certain statutes fail to create a duty to pay taxes, that such statutes do not impose the income tax on wages or other types of income claimed by the tax protesters, or that provisions within a given statute exempt the tax protesters from a duty to pay.
Tax protesters in the United States advance a number of conspiracy arguments asserting that Congress, the courts and various agencies within the federal government—primarily the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)—are involved in a deception deliberately designed to procure from individuals or entities their wealth or profits in contravention of law. Conspiracy arguments are distinct from, though related to, constitutional, statutory, and administrative arguments. Proponents of such arguments contend that all three branches of the United States government are working covertly to defraud the taxpayers of the United States through the illegal imposition, assessment and collection of a federal income tax.
Under Section 1031 of the United States Internal Revenue Code, a taxpayer may defer recognition of capital gains and related federal income tax liability on the exchange of certain types of property, a process known as a 1031 exchange. In 1979, this treatment was expanded by the courts to include non-simultaneous sale and purchase of real estate, a process sometimes called a Starker exchange.
Mazzei v. Commissioner, 61 T.C. 497 (1974), was a United States Tax Court case in which the Court ruled that a taxpayer could not consider $20,000 lost to a fraudulent counterfeiting scheme as a basis for a deduction under section 165(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code ("Code").
Hornung v. Commissioner is a case heard by the United States Tax Court in 1967.
A like-kind exchange under United States tax law, also known as a 1031 exchange, is a transaction or series of transactions that allows for the disposal of an asset and the acquisition of another replacement asset without generating a current tax liability from the sale of the first asset. A like-kind exchange can involve the exchange of one business for another business, one real estate investment property for another real estate investment property, livestock for qualifying livestock, and exchanges of other qualifying assets. Like-kind exchanges have been characterized as tax breaks or "tax loopholes".
The Doctrine of Cash Equivalence states that the U.S. Federal income tax law treats certain non-cash payment transactions like cash payment transactions for federal income tax purposes. The doctrine is used most often for deciding when cash method taxpayers are to include certain non-cash income items. Another doctrine often used when trying to determine the timing of the inclusion of income is the constructive receipt doctrine.
Teschner v. Commissioner, 38 T.C. 1003 (1962) was a tax-law case involving the United States IRS in 1962.
Salvatore v. Commissioner is an opinion from the United States Tax Court that holds that a taxpayer cannot avoid paying taxes on the sale of property by first conveying that property to someone else. This opinion was later affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. This case outlines some limitations on the "fruit-and-tree" metaphor established in Lucas v. Earl, 281 U.S. 111 (1930) and further developed in Helvering v. Horst, 311 U.S. 112 (1940). Decided in 1970, the case arose when a taxpayer tried to avoid paying capital gains tax from sale of property by giving a share in that property to her children. She then paid a gift tax, which is significantly less than the tax on the gain would have been if she had not given a share to her children.
Grynberg v. Commissioner, 83 T.C. 255 (1984) was a case in which the United States Tax Court held that one taxpayer's prepaid business expenses were not ordinary and necessary expenses of the years in which they were made, and therefore the prepayments were not tax deductible. Taxpayers in the United States often seek to maximize their income and decrease their tax liability by prepaying deductible expenses and taking a deduction earlier rather than in a later tax year.
Schlude v. Commissioner, 372 U.S. 128 (1963), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that, under the accrual method, taxpayers must include as income in a particular year advance payments by way of cash, negotiable notes, and contract installments falling due but remaining unpaid during that year. In doing so, the Court tossed aside the matching principle in favor of the earlier-of test.
Artnell Company v. Commissioner, 400 F.2d 981 is a decision by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, in which the court, distinguishing from the holding in Schlude v. Commissioner, held that accrual method taxpayers are not required to include prepayments in gross income when there is certainty as to when performance would occur.
Davis v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1978-12 (1978), was a case in which the United States Tax Court held that in order to have constructive receipt, a taxpayer must have notice of the attempt to transfer funds to the taxpayer.
In the United States, the question whether any compensation plan is qualified or non-qualified is primarily a question of taxation under the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). Any business prefers to deduct its expenses from its income, which will reduce the income subject to taxation. Expenses which are deductible ("qualified") have satisfied tests required by the IRC. Expenses which do not satisfy those tests ("non-qualified") are not deductible; even though the business has incurred the expense, the amount of that expenditure remains as part of taxable income. In most situations, any business will attempt to satisfy the requirements so that its expenditures are deductible business expenses.
Tax protesters in the United States advance a number of constitutional arguments asserting that the imposition, assessment and collection of the federal income tax violates the United States Constitution. These kinds of arguments, though related to, are distinguished from statutory and administrative arguments, which presuppose the constitutionality of the income tax, as well as from general conspiracy arguments, which are based upon the proposition that the three branches of the federal government are involved together in a deliberate, on-going campaign of deception for the purpose of defrauding individuals or entities of their wealth or profits. Although constitutional challenges to U.S. tax laws are frequently directed towards the validity and effect of the Sixteenth Amendment, assertions that the income tax violates various other provisions of the Constitution have been made as well.
Amend v. Commissioner, 13 T.C. 178 is a United States Tax Court decision concerning the timing of the realization of gains.
