Supreme Court hands down two rare tax case decisions

Reversing a decision of the 6th Circuit, the Supreme Court ruled in Yates that a small business owner may be treated as both an employer and an employee for ERISA purposes. In the court's opinion, it was important that there were employees covered by the qualified plan other than the sole owner of the professional corporation and his spouse. In the US v. Galletti case, the Supreme Court sided with the government, rather than the taxpayer in holding that timely assessment of employment taxes against a partnership is sufficient to allow a collection action against the general partners without the necessity of having also timely assessed the partners.