A nonprofit religious organization, which claimed “church” status during an Internal Revenue Service inquiry about possible excess benefit transactions, is unable to stop IRS subpoenas for financial records held by eight banks.  A federal District Court in South Carolina has rejected the group’s efforts to prevent the banks from providing the information.

Reversing a decision by a state appellate court, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has held that a lawyer cannot be liable for legal malpractice to potential third-party beneficiaries of a decedent’s estate when the potential beneficiaries have not been named in testamentary documents actually executed by the decedent.

That’s what the general manager of a car dealership in Savannah, GA, has learned the hard way.

A claim for a $338,000 charitable contribution deduction for the gift of a 50% interest in an airplane has been denied by the Tax Court because it was not accompanied by a statutorily compliant contemporaneous written acknowledgment.

Alumni trustees of Penn State University may recover the litigation costs of their successful suit to gain access to “source materials” of the Freeh Report on the Jerry Sandusky situation, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has held. 

The Florida Supreme Court, accepting a question certified by the state Court of Appeal, has held that an agreement by a charitable organization to make payments in lieu of taxes (“PILOTs”) to a local municipality is not unconstitutional or unenforceable.  The Court of Appeal had ruled otherwise (See Nonprofit Issues, April 2015.) and the Supreme Court has reversed.