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The 2023 archive

Everything Fortress published in 2023, newest first — the developments and planning windows that defined the year.

14 pieces in this view

AnalysisOctober 20235 min read

The 15% Corporate Minimum Tax Is Live for 2023, and the Rules Keep Changing

The corporate alternative minimum tax applies to tax year 2023, but its core mechanics have arrived in pieces, through a series of interim notices rather than a complete set of regulations. Large corporations are expected to comply with a tax whose rules are still being assembled. The immediate exposure is not the eventual liability — it is the estimated-tax question, which the IRS has had to address with specific relief. For affected corporations, the task this year is to track a moving body of guidance while managing a near-term cash obligation.

ReadBusiness & Planning

AnalysisOctober 20231 min read

The ERC Withdrawal Program: A Penalty-Free Exit for Businesses Whose Claims Don't Hold Up

The IRS withdrawal program changed the ERC landscape for businesses that filed claims but no longer feel confident in their support. For some taxpayers, stepping back early is the lowest-risk decision.

ReadControversy & Compliance

AnalysisOctober 20236 min read

Moore v. United States: The Supreme Court Case That Could Reach Far Beyond Section 965

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether income must be realized before it can be taxed. The case concerns a one-time tax on the undistributed earnings of a foreign corporation, but the constitutional question it raises is broad enough to touch large parts of the tax code and to bear on proposals for federal wealth taxation. For taxpayers who paid the tax at issue, the case also creates a narrow, time-sensitive planning question that should be considered before the refund window closes.

ReadTrusts & Estates

Tax AlertSeptember 20231 min read

IRS Halts New ERC Claims: What the September 2023 Moratorium Means for Businesses Still Waiting

The IRS has announced an immediate moratorium on processing new Employee Retention Credit claims. For businesses with claims in process, claims under consideration, or aggressive promoter outreach in their inbox, the environment has changed materially.

ReadControversy & Compliance

AnalysisSeptember 20231 min read

High-Income Audits Are Back: What the IRS's 2023 Enforcement Push Means for Affluent Filers

The IRS's 2023 enforcement announcements made clear that high-income and complex returns are receiving renewed attention. That does not mean every affluent filer is headed for an audit, but it does mean documentation discipline matters more than it did during the agency's leaner years.

ReadBusiness & Planning

AnalysisSeptember 20236 min read

Notice 2023-63: The IRS Defines What Section 174 Capitalization Actually Means

When mandatory capitalization of research costs took effect, it arrived without answers to the questions that determine the dollar figure on a return: which costs are swept in, where software development begins and ends, and which party to a research contract has to capitalize. Notice 2023-63 is the IRS's first substantive attempt to answer them. It is interim guidance, not final regulations, but taxpayers may rely on it for returns already affected — if they apply it as a whole. For research-intensive businesses, this is the guidance that turns a set of open questions into a workable method.

ReadBusiness & Planning

AnalysisSeptember 20234 min read

High Earners Get a Reprieve: Mandatory Roth Catch-Ups Pushed to 2026

SECURE 2.0 required higher-paid employees to make their retirement catch-up contributions on an after-tax Roth basis beginning in 2024. The rule was set to take effect before plan recordkeeping systems could support it, and a drafting error in the statute appeared to threaten catch-up contributions altogether. Notice 2023-62 resolves both problems: it confirms catch-up contributions continue, and it delays the mandatory-Roth rule for high earners by two years. For plan sponsors, this is breathing room, not a repeal, and the work of preparing for 2026 should continue.

ReadBusiness & Planning

AnalysisAugust 20231 min read

The Proposed 1099-DA Rules: What a New Digital Asset Reporting Regime Means for Investors

Proposed digital asset broker reporting rules point toward a future where taxpayers and the IRS will be working from much more standardized information. That is helpful for compliance, but it also means recordkeeping gaps will be harder to hide behind.

ReadBusiness & Planning

AnalysisAugust 20235 min read

RMD Age Is 73 Now, and the IRS Gave a Mulligan: What Notice 2023-54 Fixes

SECURE 2.0 raised the age at which retirees must begin taking required minimum distributions to 73. Because the change took effect at the very end of 2022, some retirees born in 1951 took distributions in 2023 that were no longer required, and some beneficiaries faced uncertainty about distributions under the ten-year rule. Notice 2023-54 addresses both. It extends a rollover deadline for the mistaken distributions and again waives the missed-distribution penalty for certain beneficiaries. For affected retirees, this is a correctable error rather than a permanent one — but only if the correction happens in time.

ReadBusiness & Planning

AnalysisJuly 20236 min read

Tax Credits You Can Sell, or Get Paid in Cash: Sections 6417 and 6418 Open a New Market

For most of their history, clean-energy tax credits were useful only to taxpayers with enough tax liability to absorb them. The Inflation Reduction Act changed that. Tax-exempt entities can now receive certain credits as cash, and for-profit taxpayers can sell credits they cannot use to buyers who can. Proposed and temporary regulations issued in June 2023 set the mechanics — including a mandatory registration step that must happen before the return is filed. A genuine market for these credits is forming, and the rules of entry are now visible.

ReadBusiness & Planning

AnalysisJune 20235 min read

Where You Build Now Pays: Decoding the Energy Community Bonus Credit

The Inflation Reduction Act made the location of a clean-energy project a credit decision. Build in a community shaped by coal, oil, or natural gas, or on a brownfield site, and the project can earn a meaningful bonus on top of the base credit. Notice 2023-29 defines who qualifies, and a beginning-of-construction safe harbor lets a developer lock that status in. For project sponsors, geography has become a line item, and the time to map it is before construction starts.

ReadBusiness & Planning

AnalysisApril 20235 min read

The New EV Credit Math: Critical Minerals, Battery Components, and the April 18 Squeeze

As of April 18, 2023, the $7,500 clean vehicle credit no longer turns on whether a vehicle is electric. It turns on where the battery's minerals were sourced and where its components were made. Two new sourcing tests split the credit into halves, and on the day the proposed regulations took effect, far fewer vehicles qualified for the full amount. For buyers and dealers, the practical question is no longer whether a model is eligible in the abstract — it is whether it is eligible on the day it is placed in service.

ReadBusiness & Planning

AnalysisApril 20236 min read

The R&D Tax Bill Nobody Voted For: Surviving Section 174 Capitalization in the First Full Filing Season

For the first time, businesses are filing returns under mandatory capitalization of research and experimental costs. Companies that spent nothing new on research can owe substantially more tax than they did a year ago. The change was enacted in 2017 and deferred until now, which means it arrives this filing season with full force and without the legislative fix many assumed would come. This is the most consequential cost-recovery change most research-intensive businesses will face this year, and the planning response is overdue rather than early.

ReadBusiness & Planning

AnalysisFebruary 20235 min read

The $10 Billion Section 48C Comeback: How to Position for an Advanced Energy Project Credit Allocation

The Inflation Reduction Act revived the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit and funded it with $10 billion in new allocation authority. Notice 2023-18 sets the rules, and Round 1 will move on a competitive clock. This is not a credit a taxpayer simply claims on a return — it is an allocation a taxpayer has to win, and the process rewards preparation that begins before the application window opens.

ReadBusiness & Planning

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A development from this year still in play?

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