The U.S. Department of Justice has asked a federal court to issue an injunction prohibiting Martin Kapp, a certified public accountant based in California, from advising his clients that they can claim on their income tax returns what has come to be known in the industry as “the mariner’s deduction.”
Kapp has written about tax breaks for mariners in articles that appeared in Professional Mariner. The first of those articles, detailing tax deductions he said are available to mariners, appeared in PM #59 (Oct./Nov. 2001). He subsequently wrote several more articles that discussed the details of these tax deductions for meals and incidental expenses.
In its court filing, the Department of Justice has described Kapp’s views on the deductions as “frivolous” and “unrealistic.”
Kapp continues to defend his tax advice and has been referring his clients to postings on the Internal Revenue Service’s Web site that Kapp said supports his position.
Resolution of the issue is now up to the court. No court date has been set.
