Tax Attorney in Myrtle Beach, SC

Yes. South Carolina imposes a graduated personal income tax topping out at 6.4% under S.C. Code §12-6-510, with statutory rate reductions phasing the top rate toward a 6.0% target. The state also levies a 5% corporate income tax under §12-6-530, a 6% state sales-and-use tax, the 2% statewide accommodations tax on short-term rentals and hotels under §12-36-920, and local accommodations and hospitality taxes administered by Horry County and the City of Myrtle Beach. The reason so many retirees choose Myrtle Beach over Florida or Tennessee anyway is §12-6-1170: Social Security is 100% exempt and an age-65-plus deduction up to $30,000 per taxpayer applies against pensions and IRA distributions. For a couple drawing $80,000 of retirement income, the actual South Carolina liability often falls below the cost of Florida's higher property taxes and homeowner insurance. South Carolina has no state estate tax. Federal income tax on Form 1040 applies in full.

The U.S. Tax Court does not hold a permanent session in Myrtle Beach. South Carolina cases are tried in Columbia (about 110 miles west) or Charleston (about 100 miles south). A petitioner designates the preferred place of trial on the petition under Tax Court Rule 140 — Charleston is often the closer drive for Pawleys Island and Murrells Inlet filers, while Columbia is closer for Conway and inland Horry County. Sessions are scheduled on rotation rather than monthly. Small-tax-case procedure under IRC §7463 is available for deficiencies of $50,000 or less per year.

Short-term rentals with average rental periods of seven days or less are not rental activities for passive-loss purposes under Treas. Reg. §1.469-1T(e)(3) and IRC §280A. Two consequences: (1) personal-use limits under IRC §280A constrain deductible expenses (if you used the property personally more than the greater of 14 days or 10% of rental days, you fall under the dwelling-unit rules), and (2) losses cannot offset W-2 income under the passive-activity rules unless you materially participate. Many Grand Strand rentals — Cherry Grove weekly houses, Ocean Drive beach cottages, Surfside and Garden City weekly cottages, Pawleys Island plantation rentals — also have substantial services (cleaning, linens, key handoff, beach-chair concierge) that push them out of Schedule E rental treatment and into Schedule C trade-or-business treatment with self-employment tax under IRC §1401 on net profits. On the state side, you owe South Carolina's 2% statewide accommodations tax under S.C. Code §12-36-920, the Horry County local accommodations tax, the City of Myrtle Beach local accommodations and tourism-related hospitality taxes, and the 6% state sales-and-use tax on prepared food and the rental portion that qualifies. The IRS audits the Schedule E recharacterization regularly across the Grand Strand. We help with both the federal recharacterization defense and the SC DOR side under SC Form SC2848.

New York is the most aggressive state in the country at pursuing domicile and statutory-residency disputes against former residents. Under N.Y. Tax Law §605(b), New York taxes the worldwide income of any individual who (1) is domiciled in New York, unless they meet the "safe harbor" of fewer than 30 days in New York and a permanent place of abode outside the state for the entire year, or (2) maintains a permanent place of abode in New York and spends more than 183 days there (statutory residency). A clean move from New York to Pawleys Island or Carolina Forest requires evidence on the five domicile factors the New York Department of Taxation and Finance scrutinizes: home, business, time, family, and items near and dear. We work with New York counsel on the New York-side audit defense and handle the federal-side IRS work directly. South Carolina's 6.4% top rate plus the Social Security exemption and age-65 deduction make the move economically meaningful, but the audit risk is real, especially if a New York apartment or business interest stays behind. The same general framework applies to New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Maryland departing-resident audits.

Personal casualty losses are allowed under IRC §165(h) only for losses attributable to a federally-declared disaster — Florence (2018), Dorian (2019), Helene (2024), and Milton (2024) each carry FEMA disaster declarations for Horry and Georgetown counties. The IRS reviews three items: (1) the adjusted basis in the damaged property, (2) the decrease in fair market value (typically established by appraisal or repair cost), and (3) all insurance, FEMA grant, and SBA disaster loan recovery that must be netted against the loss. Business or income-producing-property losses follow a separate rule under IRC §165(c)(1) without the personal $100-per-event and 10%-of-AGI floors. Involuntary conversion deferral under IRC §1033 may apply if you replace damaged property with qualifying replacement property within the statutory window. The IRS is auditing these positions now, particularly along the oceanfront from Cherry Grove down through Garden City. Disaster relief under IRC §7508A also automatically postponed filing and payment deadlines for declared counties — check the IRS publication for the specific dates that apply to your year.

A PGA teaching professional working across the 90-plus Grand Strand golf courses is generally either a W-2 employee of a single club or a Schedule C independent contractor whose 1099 income flows from lesson fees, pro-shop arrangements, and tournament purses. The Schedule C side carries 15.3% self-employment tax under IRC §1401 on net earnings up to the Social Security wage base, plus 2.9% Medicare above it, plus ordinary federal income tax. South Carolina's 6.4% rate runs on top. The two big planning items are (1) quarterly estimated payments under IRC §6654 to avoid the underpayment penalty — the seasonal Grand Strand income pattern makes the annualized-income exception under §6654(d)(2) worth running — and (2) the §199A qualified business income deduction up to 20% of net income, subject to the specified-service-trade-or-business limits for teaching activities and the wage and unadjusted-basis-in-property tests above the threshold. We also coordinate Solo 401(k) and SEP-IRA contributions to drop the taxable base.

Large food-and-beverage establishments (more than 10 employees on a typical business day) must file Form 8027 reporting gross receipts and tip income under IRC §6053. If reported tips fall below 8% of gross receipts attributable to food and beverage, the employer must allocate the shortfall to directly-tipped employees. The IRS uses Form 8027 data to drive Tip Reporting Compliance Agreements (TRACs) and Tip Rate Determination Agreements (TRDAs), and a notice triggers either an examination or a voluntary compliance arrangement. Misclassifying mandatory service charges as gratuities is the most common audit hit — service charges are wages subject to FICA and withholding; voluntary tips are tip income subject to a separate withholding regime. We respond to the notice, negotiate the compliance-agreement track where it makes sense, and defend any back-year assessment that already issued. The South Carolina DOR side runs in parallel for the sales-and-use tax treatment of service charges versus gratuities.

Yes for all of them. A levy under IRC §6331 reaches property and rights to property held by or for the taxpayer, including bank accounts and wages. Once the bank receives a levy, it segregates the account and holds funds for 21 days under IRC §6332(c) before remittance. Wage levies on Marriott, Hilton, Embassy Suites, Sands Resorts, Conway Medical Center, Grand Strand Medical Center, Tidelands Health, Coastal Carolina University, and major bank payroll are continuous — they remain in place each pay period until the IRS releases them. Acting in the 21-day bank-levy window matters: a properly-filed CDP request, accepted CNC, or accepted Installment Agreement suspends remittance. For seasonal hospitality workers whose income drops sharply in January through March, we routinely use the seasonal-cash-flow argument to obtain CNC status or a Partial Pay IA structured around the income pattern.

It depends on use. The IRC §121 primary-residence exclusion ($250,000 single, $500,000 married filing jointly) applies only if you owned the property and used it as your principal residence for at least two of the five years before sale. A resort condo that sat in a rental pool and was used personally for a few weeks per year does not qualify. IRC §1031 like-kind exchange treatment, however, is available for investment-property sales — you can swap a Sands Resorts unit for another investment property (any U.S. real property held for investment qualifies) and defer the gain, provided you meet the 45-day identification and 180-day closing windows and use a qualified intermediary. For condo-hotel units, the personal-use limits matter for §1031 too: substantial personal use can tip the property out of investment classification. We address the §121 versus §1031 versus straight-sale capital-gains analysis up front and structure the closing accordingly. The Grand Strand condo market saw heavy 2020-2024 appreciation, and the federal gain on a unit purchased pre-2015 can be significant.

Yes, if at any time during the calendar year the aggregate value of all your foreign financial accounts exceeded $10,000. FinCEN Form 114 (FBAR) is filed separately from your 1040 and is due April 15 with an automatic extension to October 15. Form 8938 under FATCA layers on top for higher thresholds. Civil penalties for non-willful violations run up to $10,000 per violation per year (recently capped per FBAR not per account by the Supreme Court in Bittner v. United States); willful penalties reach the greater of $100,000 or 50% of the account balance, per violation. For Myrtle Beach Caribbean-American and Bahamian residents who never knew the requirement existed, the Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures (Streamlined Foreign or Streamlined Domestic) provide a path to resolve legacy non-filing with a reduced or zero offshore penalty, provided the conduct was non-willful. We handle both the FBAR delinquency cleanup and the underlying income-tax amendments.

The Myrtle Beach Air Force Base closed in 1993 and the property now operates as Myrtle Beach International Airport, but a meaningful retired Air Force population remains in Horry County. Military retirement pay reported on your 1099-R is generally subject to federal income tax. VA disability compensation is excluded from gross income under 38 USC §5301(a) and IRC general principles. The IRC §22 Credit for the Elderly or the Disabled is narrow but still on the books. On the South Carolina side, military retirement pay receives a partial deduction under S.C. Code §12-6-1171 (currently phased to a 100% military-retirement exemption for taxpayers age 65 or older meeting the requirements). Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC) and Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay (CRDP) interact with the federal disability exclusion in technical ways that require careful 1099-R reading. We routinely review retired military 1099-R taxability against the Defense Finance and Accounting Service breakdown.

The South Carolina Administrative Law Court (ALC), at 1205 Pendleton Street, Columbia SC 29201, is an independent state tribunal established under S.C. Code §1-23-500 et seq. that hears contested-case matters for several state agencies, including the South Carolina Department of Revenue. After a Notice of Proposed Assessment from the SC DOR, taxpayers exhaust the agency's internal Administrative Appeals stage and then request a contested-case hearing at the ALC. The ALC issues a final order subject to judicial review in the South Carolina Court of Appeals under §1-23-610. Because the ALC is a dedicated state-tax tribunal (one of only a handful nationally, alongside Indiana, Oregon, New Jersey, New Mexico, and a few others), the procedural record is more developed than a typical state DOR informal-conference process. South Carolina-bar admission is required to appear at ALC contested-case hearings, which is why VTL handles the IRS and DOR administrative work directly and refers ALC contested-case litigation to local South Carolina counsel.

Yes. Communications between you and a licensed attorney for the purpose of seeking legal advice are protected by federal common-law attorney-client privilege, subject to the usual exceptions (crime-fraud, waiver, third-party presence). The narrower federally-authorized tax practitioner privilege under IRC §7525 applies to non-attorney CPAs and EAs but does not extend to criminal-tax matters or to written tax-shelter communications. An attorney handling your tax case retains the broader privilege that survives criminal investigation, which matters significantly if a civil audit shifts to a Criminal Investigation Division referral.

For SC DOR administrative protests, informal conferences, and Administrative Appeals stages, taxpayers may be represented by an attorney, a CPA, or another authorized representative under SC Form SC2848 power of attorney. VTL handles this administrative side remotely. For a contested case that proceeds to the South Carolina Administrative Law Court under S.C. Code §1-23-500 et seq., and for judicial review in the South Carolina Court of Appeals or in South Carolina circuit court (in Myrtle Beach, the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit covering Horry and Georgetown Counties), an attorney admitted to the South Carolina Bar is required. VTL handles the federal side of overlapping matters and refers South Carolina state-court and ALC litigation to local South Carolina counsel. Many SC DOR disputes resolve before reaching the ALC stage.

Federal tax-resolution fees vary by matter complexity. A straightforward Installment Agreement typically falls between $1,500 and $3,500. A full Offer in Compromise with Form 433 financial analysis runs $4,000 to $7,500. Audit defense depends on the audit type and the number of issues. A U.S. Tax Court petition with case workup and trial preparation generally starts at $6,000 and rises with case complexity. A combined federal-plus-FBAR Streamlined Filing engagement for a Caribbean-community taxpayer or a Northeast-relocation retiree with overseas accounts runs higher because it involves multiple disclosures and an offshore penalty calculation. Departing-resident audit defense from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, or Maryland involves coordination with originating-state counsel and additional documentation work. VTL provides a written fee quote after the free consultation. Cal Bar Rule 7.1 prohibits comparisons claiming we are cheaper or faster than other firms without verifiable substantiation, so we do not market on price.