“The facts about how a taxpayer conducts their investment activity are more important than whether they are pursuing long-term or short-term results.” -Bryan Camp

I truly enjoyed this engaging article by Bryan Camp in his series “Lesson From the Tax Court” on TaxProf Blog (a member of the Law Professor Blogs network).

The author does a nice job navigating us through three historical tax court decisions, comparing the first two and then using the most recent to explain why the first two still make sense in the context of today’s world and tax code. His reconciliation of the first two cases to (in a sense) produce the third gives us a long history of facts and circumstances that I feel can be used as a pros-and-cons scale (if not an actual template) for arguing a client’s position one way or the other.

If you have any interest in the grey area where “continuity, constant repetition, regularity and extent of effort” comes up against short-term versus long-term investments (stock, real estate, or otherwise), I highly recommend giving it a read.

Source: TaxProf Blog