The Misconstruction of the Deductions for Business and Personal Casualty Losses

Losses suffered on an individual's personally used property generally are not deductible. Even after the changes made by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, in two circumstances an exception to this rule applies when "such losses arise from fire, storm, shipwreck, or other casualty, or from theft. " The principal issue that arises is determining the meaning of the term "other casualty. " Taking what they deemed to be the common elements in the three explicitly identified casualties, the courts and the Internal Revenue Service determined that an event will qualify as an "other casualty" only if it is "sudden," "unusual," and "unexpected."