Does it matter that she refused to participate in the tax court case though? Seems unfair if she gets half when she thought it was a waste of time and wouldn't help.

While it seems unfair, her refusal to participate in the tax court case typically wouldn't eliminate her right to part of the refund. Courts generally look at the source of the funds used to pay the original tax bill (joint savings in your case) rather than who pursued getting it back. Think of it this way - if you had a joint debt that she paid from joint funds, and later you discovered an error and got a refund, the nature of the original payment (joint funds for a joint liability) usually determines how courts view the refund. Your efforts to secure the refund might entitle you to compensation for your time and costs, but the underlying refund typically remains jointly owned if it came from a joint return paid with joint funds.

What kind of penalty did they give you? Was it just interest or something more?

Have you ever been audited though? I'm worried that ignoring anything on the K1 could trigger something later. Just because you haven't had an issue yet doesn't mean the IRS won't come back years later.

No, I've never been audited for this issue. You're not really "ignoring" anything on the K-1 though - you're using all the information that's relevant to your individual tax situation. The K3 just provides additional detail for certain foreign transactions that most domestic investors don't need to report. The IRS generally focuses audit resources on areas where significant tax might be underreported. For most domestic investors in MLPs, waiting for a K3 that won't change your tax liability isn't likely to be a high audit priority. I've been filing this way for over 7 years with multiple MLPs and haven't received so much as a notice.

TurboTax is super annoying with MLP K-1s. I had the same warning last year and called their support. They confirmed that if you're a US-only investor with no foreign tax credit claims, you can override that warning and proceed with filing. There's actually a checkbox somewhere in the foreign income section where you can indicate you have no foreign filing requirements.

Thanks for mentioning this! I've heard of the FIRE system but wasn't sure if it applied to 1098-F forms specifically. How long did the approval process take for you? We're working on a pretty tight timeline with our new reporting requirements.

The approval process took about 3 weeks for us, but that was during a slower period. If you're approaching year-end or tax season, it might take longer. I'd recommend submitting the Form 4419 application as soon as possible. One thing to note is that you'll need to create files in a very specific format for the FIRE system. The IRS has detailed specifications for each information return type. We ended up using a programmer to help create the proper file structure for our 1098-F submissions.

Totally agree with this. We had to go back and review hundreds of cases to determine which ones met the reporting threshold. The IRS guidance is a bit vague. Does anyone have a good checklist or process for determining what needs to be reported on 1098-F?

Does that €750M threshold apply to the global company or just operations in a specific country? Like if a company makes €800M worldwide but only €100M in France, would it still be subject to the minimum tax in France?

The €750M threshold applies to global consolidated revenue of the multinational group, not the revenue in each specific country. So in your example, a company with €800M worldwide revenue would be subject to the minimum tax rules even if they only had €100M in France. This is actually one of the key points of the agreement - it's designed to capture large multinationals that might have relatively small operations spread across many countries. The threshold was set to target the largest 10-15% of multinational enterprises while excluding smaller companies that would face disproportionate compliance burdens.

That's a really good point. Do you think there's any chance the OECD will modify the agreement to address these concerns? Or are developing nations just going to be left behind?

Thanks for sharing your experience! Did FreeTaxUSA make it easy to figure out how to divide the income between states? I'm worried I'll mess that up since some of my unemployment was while I was preparing to move but technically still in Michigan.

It really does make it pretty straightforward! When you enter your W-2 information, it asks which state the income was earned in, and when you enter your 1099-G for unemployment, it asks similar questions. For the unemployment specifically, you'll need to allocate it based on where you were living when you received it. So if you received unemployment payments while still physically living in Michigan (even if you were planning to move), those payments would be considered Michigan income. FreeTaxUSA asks for your residency dates for each state and then guides you through allocating everything correctly. Just make sure you know which unemployment payments came when, so you can properly assign them to the right state.

I disagree - paying for a CPA seems excessive for this situation. I had a similar multi-state situation and FreeTaxUSA worked fine. Just take your time and read each question carefully. Maybe have a friend who's good with taxes review it before submitting if you're worried.