Court Orders IRS to Refund Tax Shelter Penalty

Court Orders IRS to Refund Tax Shelter Penalty:  The US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky denied the IRS’s bid to avoid refunding a penalty it had imposed on a taxpayer for participating in a tax shelter. The taxpayers asserted, and both a jury and the court agreed, that they had reasonably relied on the advice of professional tax counsel that the underlying transaction in question had economic substance. The case is Ervin v. United States, No. 4:13-cv-0012y (W.D. Ky. Aug. 23, 2017).