Becker client Zlaty Schwartz scored a big victory last week when U.S. District Judge I. Leo Glasser found that a form signed by the wife of Schwartz’s late father, Chaim Lax, a diamond mogul and real estate developer, was not a binding agreement with the IRS.
The form in question, Form 890, allowed the IRS to assess around $4.4 million in estate taxes; however, the judge found that the agreement isn’t binding, and there can still be challenges to the tax liability. (The estate, however, was found to owe $55 million in income taxes related to various transactions that the government claims were used to shelter Lax’s assets after he was diagnosed with cancer in 2008.)
Zlaty Schwartz is represented by Becker Shareholder James Mahon in the dispute. In the Law360 article about the ruling, he described the court’s conclusion about Form 890 as notable and is quoted as saying, “That was a major victory for Mrs. Schwartz.”
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