People are often surprised by the long reach of Internal Revenue Service (“Service” or “IRS”) liens.¹ Plains Capital Corporation (“Plains”) recently learned this lesson. Plains lost a fight with the Service in a case before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. It appealed to Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Losing again, Plains proceeded with an appeal to the United States Supreme Court. Unfortunately, on June 24, 2013, the highest court in the nation refused to hear Plain’s appeal.² The saga is over for Plains, but the case should be a loud warning to others.
In 2002 and 2003, the Service assessed taxpayer Gregory Rand (“Rand”) for tax liabilities arising from 2000 and 2002. It eventually filed notices of federal tax liens totaling over $3 million (“Tax Liens”).
In 2005, Rand obtained a $200,000 line of credit from Plains. Plains was aware of the Tax Liens. To secure its credit extension, however, it took possession of the title to Rand’s 2005 Ferrari. Plains thought taking possession of the vehicle title would put it in front of the IRS. Wrong!
In 2007, Rand agreed with the IRS that he would deliver the Ferrari to Boardwalk Motor Sports, Ltd (“Boardwalk”). Boardwalk agreed to sell the vehicle on consignment.
The Service and Plains could not agree upon the priority of their respective liens. So, the IRS served a notice of levy on Boardwalk and instructed Boardwalk to deliver the sale proceeds to it. Later, an IRS agent instructed Boardwalk not to release the sale proceeds until the IRS and Plains reached agreement on lien priorities. If it was unsure whether an agreement was reached, Boardwalk was instructed to go to the local court and file an interpleader action.
Introduction
Section 336(e)1 expressly delegates authority to Treasury to issue regulations, allowing taxpayers to elect to treat the sale, exchange or distribution of corporate stock as a deemed sale of the corporation’s underlying assets. On May 15, 2013, Treasury finalized regulations under Section 336(e).
What is the 336(e) Election?
A Section 336(e) election allows certain taxpayers to treat the sale, exchange or distribution of corporate stock as an asset sale. The benefit of an asset sale is obvious—the basis of the target corporation’s assets is stepped up to fair market value.
If an election is made, “old target” is treated as selling all of its assets to “new target.” New target is treated as purchasing those assets, resulting in a step-up in basis of the assets. Old target recognizes the gain or loss from the deemed asset sale immediately before the close of the stock transaction.
Section 336(e) is intended to provide taxpayers relief from multiple levels of tax on the same economic gain—economic gain attributable to the appreciation of assets held in corporate solution. Such multiple levels of tax can result from the taxable transfer of appreciated corporate stock where the assets in corporate solution do not receive a corresponding step-up in basis.
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Larry J. Brant
Editor
Larry J. Brant is a Shareholder and the Chair of the Tax & Benefits practice group at Foster Garvey, a law firm based out of the Pacific Northwest, with offices in Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C.; New York, New York, Spokane, Washington; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Beijing, China. Mr. Brant is licensed to practice in Oregon and Washington. His practice focuses on tax, tax controversy and transactions. Mr. Brant is a past Chair of the Oregon State Bar Taxation Section. He was the long-term Chair of the Oregon Tax Institute, and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Portland Tax Forum. Mr. Brant has served as an adjunct professor, teaching corporate taxation, at Northwestern School of Law, Lewis and Clark College. He is an Expert Contributor to Thomson Reuters Checkpoint Catalyst. Mr. Brant is a Fellow in the American College of Tax Counsel. He publishes articles on numerous income tax issues, including Taxation of S Corporations, Reasonable Compensation, Circular 230, Worker Classification, IRC § 1031 Exchanges, Choice of Entity, Entity Tax Classification, and State and Local Taxation. Mr. Brant is a frequent lecturer at local, regional and national tax and business conferences for CPAs and attorneys. He was the 2015 Recipient of the Oregon State Bar Tax Section Award of Merit.
