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Partner Jenny Speck is presenting at the 17th Annual OPIS RFS, RINs & Biofuels Forum in Chicago, Illinois, at 4:15pm CT on "No Taxation Without… Tax Credits."

In its ongoing crusade against so-called “basis-shifting” transactions, the Internal Revenue Service has created widespread uncertainty regarding the tax treatment of routine transactions.

On August 15, 2025, the Department of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) released guidance for wind and solar facilities under Sections 45Y and 48E (the “Tech-Neutral Tax Credits”) in the form of IRS Notice 2025-42 (the “Notice”).

Stephen Josey and Quentin Manuel examine how the IRS enforces civil tax fraud penalties within the federal tax system, offering practitioners key insights into the legal standards, evidentiary burdens, and practical consequences involved. They explain how civil fraud differs from negligence and criminal tax fraud, highlight the IRS’s reliance on circumstantial evidence and badges of fraud, and outline the significant financial and legal risks taxpayers face when fraud is found. They also address defenses available to taxpayers and emphasize the importance of distinguishing between intentional misconduct and good-faith mistakes in today’s enforcement environment.

As the Trump administration continues to roll out its sweeping tariff policy, the North American energy industry is working to address the effects of the President’s tariff strategy. The Trump administration intends to “unleash American energy,”¹ in part by imposing tariffs designed to remedy what the administration views as unfair trade practices and increase U.S. domestic energy production. The currently imposed and threatened tariffs will inevitably impact the energy industry and its consumers. The particularly relevant tariffs can be defined in two broad categories: (1) sectoral tariffs, in this case, imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, and (2) the country-specific and “reciprocal tariffs” that the Trump administration has imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

On July 4, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (the “OBBBA”) into law. Congress passed the OBBBA through budget reconciliation, a special legislative process that allows Congress to advance certain tax, spending, and debt limit legislation with a simple majority vote in the Senate so long as the legislation does not increase the federal budget deficit outside a 10-year budget window.

On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (H.R. 1 119^th Congress) (“OBBBA”) into law.

In the afternoon of June 16, 2025, the Senate Finance Committee (“SFC”) released its proposed legislative text of the tax title for the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” H.R. Con. Res. 14, 119th Cong. (2025) (the “Reconciliation Bill”).

After an intense 21-hour House Rules Committee markup, early in the morning of May 22, 2025, the House passed H.R. Con. Res. 14, 119^th Cong. (2025) (the “Reconciliation Bill”), which makes significant revisions to the Inflation Reduction Act (the “IRA”) provisions.

Early this morning, the House Ways and Means Committee (the “Ways and Means Committee”) approved its recently proposed markup of H.R. Con. Res. 14, 119th Cong. (2025) (the “Reconciliation Bill”).

The opening days of the 119th U.S. Congress have been marked with congressional action under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to potentially invalidate regulations that were issued by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the final days of the Biden administration.

On March 14, 2025, President Trump signed legislation disapproving the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation implementing the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax on methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.