Penalties for Abusive Tax Shelters: Investment Taxes (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Penalties for Abusive Tax Shelters” within investment taxes. The following material presents the IRS treatment of this topic, including the qualifications, exceptions, and examples in the source section. Read the rules alongside the facts of your own situation before deciding what to report, deduct, or document.

Adapted from Publication 550 (2025), Investment Income and Expenses, published by the Internal Revenue Service. This guide retains the source edition’s years, amounts, deadlines, and examples. It is guidance for that edition, not a statement that the same figures apply to every tax year.

Context for these rules

Abusive tax shelters are marketing schemes involving artificial transactions with little or no economic reality. They often make use of unrealistic allocations, inflated appraisals, losses in connection with nonrecourse loans, mismatching of income and deductions, financing techniques that do not conform to standard commercial business practices, or mischaracterization of the substance of the transaction. Despite appearances to the contrary, the taxpayer generally takes little risk.

Abusive tax shelters commonly involve package deals designed from the start to generate losses, deductions, or credits that will be far more than the present or future investment. For example, abusive tax shelters may promise you from the start that future inflated appraisals will enable you to deduct charitable contribution deductions based on those appraisals. (But see the appraisal requirements discussed under Rules To Curb Abusive Tax Shelters, later.) They are commonly marketed in terms of the ratio of tax deductions allegedly available to each dollar invested. This ratio (or “write-off”) is frequently said to be several times greater than one-to-one.

Because there are many types of abusive tax shelters, it is not possible to list all the factors you should consider in determining whether an offering is an abusive tax shelter. However, you should ask the following questions, which may indicate that an investment is an abusive tax shelter.

• Do the tax benefits far outweigh the economic benefits? Are the tax benefits the primary reason for the transaction?

• Is this a transaction you would seriously consider if you hoped to make a profit?

• Do shelter assets really exist and, if so, are they insured for less than their purchase price?

• Is there a nontax justification for the way profits and losses are allocated to partners?

• Do the facts and supporting documents make economic sense? For example, are there sales and resales of the tax shelter property at ever increasing prices?

• Does the investment plan involve a gimmick, device, or sham to hide the economic reality of the transaction?

• Does the promoter offer to backdate documents? Are you instructed to backdate checks covering your investment?

• Is your debt a real debt or are you assured by the promoter that you will never have to pay it?

• Does this transaction involve laundering U.S. source income through foreign corporations incorporated in a tax haven and owned by U.S. shareholders?

Penalties for Abusive Tax Shelters

Investing in an abusive tax shelter may lead to substantial expenses. First, the promoter generally charges a substantial fee. If your return is examined by the IRS and a tax deficiency is determined, you will have to pay more taxes and interest on the underpayment, possibly a 20%, 30%, or even 40% accuracy-related penalty or a 75% civil fraud penalty. You may also be subject to the penalty for failure to pay tax. These penalties are explained in the following paragraphs.

Accuracy-related penalties.

An accuracy-related penalty of 20% can be imposed for underpayments of tax due to:

• Negligence or disregard of rules or regulations,

• Substantial understatement of tax,

• Substantial valuation misstatements (increased to 40% for gross valuation misstatements),

• Transactions lacking economic substance. Economic substance means that the transaction makes business sense without the tax benefits (penalty increased to 40% for nondisclosed noneconomic substance transactions),

• Undisclosed foreign financial asset understatements (40% for tax years beginning after March 18, 2010), or

• Disallowance of a deduction for a qualified conservation contribution by a pass-through entity under section 170(h)(7).

If you are charged an accuracy-related penalty, interest will be imposed on the amount of the penalty from the due date of the return (including extensions) to the date you pay the penalty.

The 20% penalties do not apply to any underpayment attributable to a reportable transaction understatement subject to an accuracy-related penalty (discussed later).

Negligence or disregard of rules or regulations.

The penalty for negligence or disregard of rules or regulations is imposed only on the part of the underpayment due to negligence or disregard of rules or regulations. Generally, the penalty will not be charged if you can show you had reasonable cause for understating your tax and that you acted in good faith.

Negligence includes any failure to make a reasonable attempt to comply with the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. It also includes any failure to keep adequate books and records. A return position that has a reasonable basis is not negligence. See Regulations section 1.6662-3(b)(1).

Disregard includes any careless, reckless, or intentional disregard of rules or regulations.

The penalty for disregard of rules and regulations can be avoided if all the following are true.

• You keep adequate books and records.

• You have a reasonable basis for your position on the tax issue.

• You make an adequate disclosure of your position.

Use Form 8275 to make your disclosure and attach it to your return. To disclose a position contrary to a regulation, use Form 8275-R. Use Form 8886 to disclose a reportable transaction. See Reportable transaction, earlier.

Substantial understatement of tax.

An understatement is considered to be substantial if it is more than the greater of:

• 10% of the tax required to be shown on the return, or

• $5,000.

For tax years beginning after 2017, if you claim any deduction allowed under section 199A, an understatement is considered to be substantial if it is more than the greater of:

• 5% of the tax required to be shown on the return, or

• $5,000.

In general, “understatement” means the excess of:

1. The amount of the tax required to be shown on the return for the tax year; over

2. The amount of the tax imposed which is shown on the return, reduced by any rebate (within the meaning of section 6211(b)(2)).

For items other than tax shelters, you can file Form 8275 or Form 8275-R to disclose items that could cause a substantial understatement of income tax. In that way, you can avoid the substantial understatement penalty if you have a reasonable basis for your position on the tax issue. Disclosure of the tax shelter item on a tax return does not reduce the amount of the understatement.

Also, the understatement penalty will not be imposed if you can show there was reasonable cause for the underpayment caused by the understatement and that you acted in good faith. An important factor in establishing reasonable cause and good faith will be the extent of your effort to determine your proper tax liability under the law.

Substantial valuation misstatement.

In general, you are liable for a 20% penalty for a substantial valuation misstatement if any the following are true.

• The value or adjusted basis of any property claimed on the return is 150% or more of the correct amount.

• You underpaid your tax by more than $5,000 because of the misstatement.

• You cannot establish that you had reasonable cause for the underpayment and that you acted in good faith.

You may be assessed a penalty of 40% for a gross valuation misstatement. If you misstate the value or the adjusted basis of property by 200% or more of the amount determined to be correct, you will be assessed a penalty of 40%, instead of 20%, of the amount you underpaid because of the gross valuation misstatement. The penalty rate is also 40% if the property's correct value or adjusted basis is zero. For an underpayment related to a gross valuation overstatement, no reasonable cause exception is available. See section 6664(c)(3). Note, however, that the accuracy-related penalty for reportable transaction understatements doesn’t apply to any portion of an understatement on which the gross valuation misstatement is imposed.

Transaction lacking economic substance.

The economic substance doctrine only applies to an individual who entered into a transaction in connection with a trade or business or an activity engaged in for the production of income. A transaction has economic substance for you as an individual taxpayer only if:

• The transaction changes your economic position in a meaningful way (apart from federal income tax effects), and

• You have a substantial purpose (apart from federal income tax effects) for entering into the transaction.

For purposes of determining whether economic substance exists, a transaction’s profit potential will only be taken into account if the present value of the reasonably expected pre-tax profit from the transaction is substantial compared to the present value of the expected net tax benefits that would be allowed if the transaction were respected.

If any part of your underpayment is due to any disallowance of claimed tax benefits by reason of a transaction lacking economic substance or failing to meet the requirements of any similar rule of law, that part of your underpayment will be subject to the 20% accuracy-related penalty even if you had a reasonable cause and acted in good faith concerning that part.

Additionally, the penalty increases to 40% if you do not adequately disclose on your return or in a statement attached to your return the relevant facts affecting the tax treatment of a transaction that lacks economic substance. Relevant facts include any facts affecting the tax treatment of the transaction.

For the understatement of tax related to reportable transactions, no penalty is imposed to any portion of an understatement if you can demonstrate the understatement was due to reasonable cause. The reasonable cause exception does not apply if the underpayment is due to a transaction that lacks economic substance.

For underpayments, no penalty will be assessed if a reasonable cause exception applies. A reasonable cause exception is generally not available for an underpayment attributable to a transaction lacking economic substance, or for an underpayment associated with a disallowed deduction for a conservation easement.

Penalty for erroneous refund claim.

You may be subject to a 20% penalty based on the excessive amount of an erroneous claim for an income tax refund or credit. If that excessive amount results from a transaction found to be lacking economic substance, it will NOT be treated as due to reasonable cause. After July 4, 2025, an erroneous claim for an employment tax refund or credit is subject to the 20% penalty under section 6676(a), unless it is shown that the claim for the excessive amount is due to reasonable cause.

Undisclosed foreign financial asset understatement.

For tax years beginning after March 18, 2010, you may be liable for a 40% penalty for an understatement of your tax liability due to an undisclosed foreign financial asset. An undisclosed foreign financial asset is any asset for which an information return, required to be provided under sections 6038, 6038B, 6038D, 6046A, or 6048 for any tax year, is not provided. The penalty applies to any part of an underpayment related to the following undisclosed foreign financial assets.

• Any foreign business you control reportable on Form 5471, Information Return of U.S. Persons With Respect To Certain Foreign Corporations, or Form 8865, Return of U.S. Persons With Respect to Certain Foreign Partnerships.

• Certain transfers of property to a foreign corporation or partnership reportable on Form 926, Return by a U.S. Transferor of Property to a Foreign Corporation, or certain distributions to a foreign person reportable on Form 8865.

• Your ownership interest in an otherwise undisclosed foreign financial asset reportable on Form 8275 or 8275-R. See the Instructions for Form 8275 or Form 8275-R.

Instead of or in addition to Form 8275 or 8275-R, you may have to file Form 8938, Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets, with your tax return. See the Instructions for Form 8938 for details.

• Your acquisition, disposition, or substantial change in ownership interest in a foreign partnership, reportable on Form 8865.

• Creation or transfer of money or property to certain foreign trusts, reportable on Form 3520, Annual Return To Report Transactions With Foreign Trusts and Receipt of Certain Foreign Gifts.

Penalty for incorrect appraisals.

The person who prepares an appraisal of the value of property may have to pay a penalty if:

• He or she knows, or reasonably should have known, that the appraisal would be used in connection with a return or claim for refund; and

• The claimed value of the property on a return or claim for refund based on that appraisal results in a substantial valuation misstatement or a gross valuation misstatement. See Substantial valuation misstatement, earlier.

For details on the penalty amount and exceptions, see Pub. 561.

Penalty for failure to disclose a reportable transaction.

If you fail to include any required information regarding a reportable transaction on a return or statement, you may have to pay a penalty of 75% of the decrease in tax shown on your return as a result of such transaction (or that would have resulted if the transaction were respected for federal tax purposes). See Reportable transaction, earlier. For an individual, the minimum penalty is $5,000 and the maximum is $10,000 (or $100,000 for a listed transaction). This penalty is in addition to any other penalty that may be imposed.

The IRS may rescind or abate the penalty for failing to disclose a reportable transaction under certain limited circumstances but cannot rescind the penalty for failing to disclose a listed transaction. See Revenue Procedure 2007-21, as updated by Treasury Decision 9686 and Announcement 2016-1 for information on rescission. Announcement 2016-1 is available at IRS.gov/irb/2016-03_IRB#ANN-2016-01.

Accuracy-related penalty for a reportable transaction understatement.

If you have a reportable transaction understatement, you may have to pay a penalty equal to 20% of the amount of that understatement. This applies to any item due to a listed transaction or other reportable transaction with a significant purpose of avoiding or evading federal income tax. The penalty is 30% rather than 20% for the part of any reportable transaction understatement if the transaction was not properly disclosed.

This penalty does not apply to the part of an understatement on which the fraud penalty, gross valuation misstatement penalty, or penalty for nondisclosure of noneconomic substance transactions is imposed.

Penalty for improper claims for the employee retention credit (ERC).

A promoter of the ERC who provides aid, assistance, or advice related to the ERC may be subject to a penalty. If the promoter fails to comply with the due diligence requirements to claim the ERC, the promoter will be subject to a $1,000 penalty for each failure.

Extension of time to audit claim for credit.

The IRS will have 6 years to review and audit claims for the ERC for accuracy. During this time period, the IRS can disallow any or all of an ERC claim and charge penalties to the promoters and taxpayers. The statute of limitations is usually 3 years.

Deadline to file for employee retention credit.

A claim for an ERC or refund will not be processed unless it was filed by the taxpayer on or before January 31, 2024. The IRS will not accept and process any new claims for credit or refunds for the ERC after that date.

Civil fraud penalty.

If any underpayment of tax on your return is due to fraud, a penalty of 75% of the underpayment will be added to your tax.

Joint return.

The fraud penalty on a joint return applies to a spouse only if some part of the underpayment is due to the fraud of that spouse.

Failure to pay tax.

If a deficiency is assessed and is not paid within 10 days of the demand for payment, you may be penalized with up to a 25% addition to tax if the failure to pay continues.

Using the guidance

Keep the documents that establish the dates, amounts, and circumstances described above. References to other chapters, forms, worksheets, or earlier and later sections refer to the linked IRS publication. Check the full publication and its updates before relying on a rule for a different tax year or a situation not addressed here.

Sources and further reading

• Publication 550 (2025), Investment Income and Expenses: Tax Shelters and Other Reportable Transactions — Abusive Tax Shelters — Penalties — Internal Revenue Service; 2025 edition.

The cited U.S. government text is in the public domain. Source accessed October 28, 2026. Fynoptic has organized this material for educational use and is independent of, and not endorsed by, the IRS.