Don’t Discriminate Against Unmarried Couples in Housing

The State of Illinois is suing Christian Housing Development for Discriminating Against Unmarried Couples. The State of Illinois is seeking $10,000 in civil penalties, civil rights training, and possible damages against a Christian housing development for refusing to let an unmarried maintenance worker live with a female companion. Under the Illinois Human Rights Act, housing providers can’t discriminate against people on the basis of marital status.

Deduction for Interest on Motor Home as Qualified Residence Allowed

A couple who operated a consulting business was entitled to deduct the interest they paid on a loan secured by their motor home because the interest was qualified residence interest. That was the good news. The bad news is that other deductions were disallowed such as a laptop computer for failure to establish business use and/or substantiate the deductions. Dunford v. Comm’r, T.C. Memo. 2013-189 (8/20/13).

IRS Denies Tax-Exempt Status to Medical Marijuana Cooperative

The IRS ruled that an organization’s primary activity of facilitating and organizing transactions between members who cultivate and possess cannabis is illegal under federal law and, thus, the organization did not qualify for tax-exempt status. PLR 201333014. Those potheads aren’t as dumb as you think!

Creative IRS Employee Can’t Deduct Cash Donations

The Tax Court held that charitable cash donations deducted by an IRS employee were not deductible. The court stated that it appeared highly probable that the taxpayer, in concert with her longtime friend and fellow IRS employee, cut and pasted stationery from a church and provided the same to the IRS agent examining her returns in an attempt to support the claimed charitable deductions. That attempt failed, the court noted, when the IRS agent attempted to verify the reported contributions with the church’s pastor, who made clear that he did not authorize the receipts to be prepared or issued on his church’s stationery, nor did he sign any such receipts. The real question is – Is She Still Working for the IRS? Payne v. Comm’r, T.C. Summary 2013-64 (8/13/13)

Our Final Advice for the Week – Do Not Dump Dirt from A Front-End Loader at the Feet of an IRS Officer!

An Omaha man has been sentenced to three years’ probation after dumping dirt from a front-end loader truck at the feet of Internal Revenue Service officers who were trying to seize his boss’s dump truck.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas D. Thalken sentenced Walter M. Trizila, age 45, to a three-year term of probation last Thursday, following a misdemeanor conviction for assault, resisting or impeding a federal officer. According to prosecutors, Trizila encountered several IRS officers who were trying to seize a dump truck owned by his employer on Nov. 8, 2012 and became confrontational with them. He then entered a front-end loader vehicle, scooped a full load of dirt into the bucket and drove directly at the IRS officers. Trizila stopped the front-end loader vehicle just short of striking an IRS officer, after which he dumped the entire load of dirt at the IRS officers’ feet and in front of the dump truck that the officers were trying to seize.

Perhaps, he should have gotten some other employees, a country band, and did a little line dancing in front of the agents. The agents would have understood this, and would have joined in since they had received line dancing lessons at taxpayer expense. They would all have had a good time, Trizila would not have been arrested, and the IRS agents would have taken the dump truck which Trizila had filled with s###!