Last year your client, the Rattameyers, were featured on Surprise Home Makeover, a network television show in which families are chosen to receive a home makeover by a team of designers, paid for by the producers of the show. The show sent the family to the DisneyWorld Resort in Orlando, Florida for one week, while its team of designers, carpenters, and other construction professionals ripped out substantial portions of their home and made extravagant renovations for its television audience. The Rattameyers entered into a contract with the producers of Surprise Home Makeover in which they rented their home to the producers for one week, in return for $50,000 rent, and an all-expenses-paid trip to Disney World for the entire family. The estimated value of the Disney World vacation was $15,000. While the family was away, Surprise Home Makeovers team of designers essentially gutted the interior of their home, and rebuilt it. All considered, the show spent approximately $250,000 renovating and remodeling the Rattameyers home. The producers assured the Rattameyers that the rent they received is nontaxable since the rental period was for less than 15 days. They also assured them that the value of the improvements would not be taxable until they sell the house, because the improvements were made by the producers as tenants.

Now the Rattameyers have come to your office for preparing their federal income tax return and on whether they should rely on the producers word in terms of their gross income of last year that may or may not be subject to federal income tax.

You would like to help the Rattameyers in minimizing their taxable income. However, based on your experience, you also know that the Internal Revenue Service may not agree with the position that the rent and the improvements on the house that the Rattamyers received are non-taxable. The Service may assert that the producers were not renting the home to live in it, but to use it as a backdrop, or studio, to film one weeks episode of the show. The IRS may argue that the Rattameyers understated their taxable income last year by $315,000, the value of the vacation, the cash rent and the value of the home renovations transferred to them by the producers of Surprise Home Makeover. The Services contention may be that the family received this payment in exchange for their agreement to be on the show as compensation.

For the Rattameyers, you have researched the relative issues in the RIA Checkpoint database. After determining the major IRC code sections for this case, you also came across a document named Private Letter Ruling 8104117 issued by the Internal Revenue Service.

Your Task:

Please decide what you would recommend to the Rattamyers about their income from the TV producer. Be specific on each item (the rent, the Disneyland vacation, and the renovation/remodeling). In making your recommendations, you need to explain to them:

a) What are the reasons for your decision? Is your decision based on substantial authority?

b) If you decide that the items are not included in gross income, what is the legal doctrine that may disallow your position by the courts? Can the taxpayer use the abovementioned private letter ruling in court if litigation with the IRS arises?