Son of Boss

Son of BOSS is the informal name for a type of tax shelter used in the United States, one that was designed and promoted by tax advisors in the 1990s to reduce federal tax obligations on capital gains from the sale of a business or other appreciated asset. "BOSS" is an acronym for "bond and option sales strategy", a earlier tax shelter that Son of BOSS resembled.

Details

The term was coined by Treasury officials to describe a variety of tax shelters that sought to wipe out taxes on capital gains from the sale of a business or other appreciated asset, for example, by artificially inflating the cost of an asset to make the profit from its sale appear smaller. The shelters involved creating paper losses to offset real gains. All resembled an earlier shelter marketed as "BOSS," short for "bond and option sales strategy." The Son of BOSS transaction was marketed in various forms by advisers at some accounting and law firms beginning in the late 1990s. Several thousand taxpayers likely used the shelter before the Treasury and Congress took steps to block its tax benefits, beginning in 2000.

The "Son of BOSS" schemes involved 1,800 people and cost the government $6 billion in lost revenue, according to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimates. Of that total, the government has recovered more than half. The IRS started cracking down on "Son of Boss" in 2000. By 2005, 1,165 people had settled Son of BOSS cases with the IRS, but the complex structures used in the schemes were hard for the IRS to unravel and it was losing some court challenges to its crackdown.

Related court cases

US v. Home Concrete

The only "Son of BOSS" case to reach the United States Supreme Court to date was the case of United States v. Home Concrete & Supply, LLC, decided in 2012.

Home Concrete was a limited liability company formed in 1999 to facilitate a Son of Boss scheme for two North Carolina businessmen, Robert Pierce and Stephen Chandler, who owned a small oil-and-coal company. The two filed their 1999 taxes in 2000. They were audited by the Internal Revenue Service, but not until 2006, and they were billed that year for unpaid taxes totaling $6 million. The Home Concrete partners sued, arguing the IRS violated a three-year statute of limitations on its power to claim unpaid taxes. The IRS replied it was within its power to bill taxpayers up to six years back when more than 25 percent of a taxpayer's gross income was involved.

The Home Concrete partners lost in district court, but won in February 2011 in an appeals court. The IRS appealed and the Supreme Court in November decided to take up the case. The United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the taxpayer stating that the six-year statute of limitations did not apply when a taxpayer overstated his basis, and thus understated his income.

In the interim, the law firm that helped the Home Concrete partners set up their Son of Boss transactions, Jenkens & Gilchrist, closed. Two of its partners were found guilty of tax evasion in May.

Marriott et al. v. US

One of the companies accused of abusing "Son of BOSS" tax shelter schemes has been Marriott Corporation. In Marriott International Resorts, LP, et al. v. United States, the "Son of BOSS" loss was the planned result of a series of transactions entered into by Marriott-affiliated entities with the intention of recognizing a tax loss based upon the premise that the obligation to close a short sale is not considered a liability for partnership-tax-basis purposes. The Internal Revenue Service took issue with this premise and disallowed the claimed loss.

The federal appeals court invalidated the maneuver by Marriott in a 2009 ruling, siding with the U.S. Department of Justice, which called Marriott’s transaction and attempted tax benefits “fictitious,” “artificial,” “spectral,” an “illusion” and a “scheme.” Marriott had argued the plan predated government efforts to close such shelters.

Mitt Romney who joined the company’s board in 1993, headed the audit committee for Marriott when it began to use the "Son of Boss" tax shelter until 1998. As a Marriott director, his responsibilities included oversight over the tax planning conducted by management.

Significant IRS rulings

IR-2005-83, Aug. 29, 2005 In the largest criminal tax case ever filed, KPMG and the the KPMG tax shelter fraud has admitted that it engaged in a fraud that generated at least $11 billion dollars in phony tax losses which, according to court papers, cost the United States at least $2.5 billion dollars in evaded taxes. In addition to KPMG’s former deputy chairman, the individuals indicted today include two former heads of KPMG’s tax practice and a former tax partner in the New York, NY office of a prominent national law firm.

IRS collections

The collections successfully made by the IRS for Son Of BOSS, BLIPS and SOS related tax shelters.

• 2005 - According to the IRS, they have collected more than $3.7 billion from taxpayers who voluntarily participated in a parallel civil global settlement initiative called Son of Boss. The BLIPS and SOS shelters are part of the Son of Boss family of tax shelters.

U. S. 2012 Presidential Elections cast renewed Emphasis on Son of BOSS as a tax scheme

In a campaign advertisement released on August 9, 2012, incumbent President, Barack Obama made specific reference to his presumed GOP opponent Willard Mitt Romney and his involvement in Son of BOSS schemes On this same day, several other notable news sources released stories casting Son of BOSS centerstage. Forbes Magazine contributor Peter J. Reilly wrote a piece titled "Romney, Marriott And Son Of Boss ---- For Dummies"