James H. Swanson and Josephine A. Swanson - Page 26

                                       - 26 -                                         
          issue was her desire to discover new facts with which to                    
          resuscitate her meritless litigation position.  The following               
          statements from respondent's memorandum are illuminating in this            
          regard:                                                                     
               due to the complexity of the prohibited transaction                    
               rules and the many ways in which disqualified person                   
               status can be achieved through specific relationships                  
               described in I.R.C. � 4975(e)(2), it was imperative                    
               that respondent explore other possible violations                      
               before conceding that the facts (as represented by                     
               petitioner's counsel) demonstrated no violation.                       
                        *     *     *     *     *     *     *                         
                    Petitioner husband established the IRA and created                
               a DISC inside of his IRA to shelter from current income                
               inclusion dividend payments made by an international                   
               trading company in which he was the sole shareholder.                  
               But for the existence of the IRA, such dividends would                 
               be currently taxable to him.  If he had created the                    
               DISC outside of the IRA, and then sold some or all of                  
               the stock in the DISC to the IRA, the sale of stock in                 
               the DISC to his IRA would clearly violate the                          
               prohibited transactions rules under I.R.C. � 4975.                     
               Similarly, the payment of any dividends from his wholly                
               owned corporation to his IRA that effectively allows                   
               him to avoid current income inclusion because he                       
               assigned his interest in the DISC to his IRA arguably                  
               represents an indirect benefit to him personally.                      
                    For example, both petitioner husband and                          
               petitioner wife indirectly received a significant                      
               current tax benefit derived from the payment of DISC                   
               dividends into his IRA, rather than to the husband as a                
               direct shareholder.  But for the creation and                          
               maintenance of the IRA, petitioner husband (and, by                    
               virtue of her election to file a joint return, the                     
               petitioner wife) would have current income inclusion                   
               for payments from the trading corporation to the DISC.                 
               Accordingly, the transactions between his wholly-owned                 
               trading corporation to such entity are arguably                        
               indirect prohibited transactions between disqualified                  
               persons and the IRA.  Also, since one slight variation                 
               in the structure or operation of the petitioner's                      
               transactions could have resulted in noncompliance with                 




Page:  Previous  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  32  33  34  35  Next

Last modified: May 25, 2011