Tax shelters promoters have re-named, re-packaged and combined some old, illegal and abusive tax shelters. These things are done in order to defraud a new set of unsuspecting taxpayers.
Tax shelters
The so-called “Syndicated Conservation Easement” tax shelter is the latest example.
The Syndicated Conservation Easement is designated as an “Listed Transaction” pursuant to IRS Notice 2017-10.
This means that as soon as the IRS becomes aware that you asserted a tax deductions from a Syndicated Conservation Easement, the IRS will be looking for you.
They want you to pay back taxes and interest. If you were sold one of these Easement strategies, you could be looking at the possibility of a malpractice and fraud case against the promoters.
THE SYNDICATED CONSERVATION EASEMENT SHELTER IS A RE-TREAD AND VARIANT OF TWO TAX SHELTERS PREVIOUSLY REJECTED BY THE IRS
The IRS is taking aggressive action to identify and disallow any benefits claimed by taxpayers who participated in Syndicated Conservation Easement tax shelters.
The IRS will find you by simply issuing subpoenas to the promoters who sold the Easement to you.
Don’t let any promoter tell you otherwise! Nearly every major player in the tax shelter business lost the “fight of subpoena” in the tax shelter cases that ensued over the years from 1999 till 2005.
In such cases, many tax shelter promoters advised their clients to play the “audit lottery” and not divulge their participation in such tax shelters. This proved to be a very expensive and bad gamble for those taxpayers.
The IRS figured out who the involved taxpayers were, and, by the time that happened, the taxpayers had not sued the promoters civilly and the statutes of limitations had run.
The Syndicated Conservation Easement is really nothing more than a play on the previously failed and rejected “tax strategies” known as the SC2 or “S-Corp Charitable Contribution Strategy” and the “DAD” or “Distressed Asset/Debt” strategy from fifteen years ago.