Posts Tagged adjusted
The IRS & Madoff Investors: “Theft Losses” (Ponzi Schemes)
On 3/17/09, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told the Senate Finance Committee:
“. . . Thousands of Taxpayers have been victimized by dozens of fraudulent investment schemes. These too-good-to-be-true investment uses have often taken the form of so-called “Ponzi schemes” (i.e., the fraud perpetrator promises investments returns, some or all of which are fictitious) . . . The Madoff scandal has affected a very large and diverse pool of Investors, some of whom are reported to have lost most of their life savings . . . To help provide clarity and to assist Taxpayers the IRS is today issuing guidance articulating the tax rules that apply and providing “safe harbor” procedures for Taxpayers who sustained losses in certain investment arrangements discovered to be criminally fraudulent.”
In response, the IRS issued Rev. Rul. 2009-9, Rev. Proc. 2009-20 which allows Investors, defrauded by “Ponzi schemes” (including Madoff’s “Ponzi scheme”) to claim an IRC §165(e) theft loss deduction (i.e., ordinary loss deductions not a capital loss deduction for their “qualified investment” (Rev. Proc. 2009-20, Sec 2.06).
Laws Regarding Capital Losses In Thailand
It is often said that income tax returns are more imaginative than best selling novels. The truth, in both types of documents, is stretched, spun, colored and twisted to make things appear almost unrecognizable. However, new Thailand laws have been developed by the Revenue Department to ensure that capital losses, an area of tax returns rife for unethical deductions, are now fairer. Business legal services in Thailand are also trying to comprehend the effects on their clients.
The Revenue Department in Thailand is now focusing on the Thailand law regarding capital losses, in light of a traditional tax planning technique involving transactions of a circular nature. These circular transactions are entered into by the parties with the main or single purpose of carrying out a series of deals that will generate tax expenditure, eventually.