Viva Hammer quoted in Agenda magazine on the impact of the form for Uncertain Tax Positions for corporations Agenda UTP

Viva Hammer comments on a new case shutting down a tax shelter using FX options. Read more here

The media abounds with Viva Hammer’s words on Dodd-Frank implementation.

• Accounting Today: Dodd-Frank
• BNA DTR: Dodd-Frank
• BNA Banking: Dodd-Frank
• Big4 Dodd-Frank

The IRS has issued new guidance on the taxation of hedging transactions that are exchange-traded. Implications are discussed by Viva Hammer in an article by Dow Jones. IRS Eases Slightly In Dispute Over Derivatives Tax

“Every portfolio manager has the obligation to minimize risk and maximize returns, and CDSs can be part of a  program to accomplish this if properly used,” says Viva Hammer, who was responsible for tax regulations governing CDSs while with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Policy. Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings, she points out, the CDS market behaved in an orderly fashion. “The cause of the crisis wasn’t derivatives; the cause was fraud and misbehavior in the underlying markets,” she argues.

Yet, as Viva Hammer says, “if you restrict or forbid pension funds from the CDS market” — as some legislators would do — “you would be excluding them from an important market and potentially increasing their risks and decreasing their returns.”

Read the full article here: How Pension Funds Exploit Credit Default Swaps

“The House derivatives bill has new loopholes
that eat the rules, according to Viva Hammer of
Crowell & Moring LLP, who spoke at the recent
New York State Society of CPAs conference on
taxation of financial instruments and transactions…

“Nor is the clearing requirement what it seems,
according to Hammer. Clearing need not be on an
exchange. It could be on an alternative swaps
execution facility.”

Tax Notes Today, February 1, 2010

Read Viva’s comments here Avoid Capital Gains Tax Anschutz Personal Finance Baldwin tax-strategy

Viva’s move to KPMG highlighted in Washington Business Journal July 9, 2010

 

The October 2009 issue of Tax Haven featured a Q&A with Viva Hammer on her role as an American Contributor to the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation (IBFD) publication, Derivatives, and Financial Instruments.