Ask Tom Anything - February 28, 2023

Installment sale of an intangible asset plus your tax questions answered

In last month’s Ask Tom Anything edition, there was a question about how to handle the sale of a customer list when the purchase price is not known in the year of sale since the consideration for the customer list is a percentage of revenue from the retained customers over a multi-year period.

This is common when a tax practice is sold: the client list is sold to another tax firm, which pays, for example, 25% of the revenue from those clients each year for three years to the now-retired business owner.

We’ll analyze the transaction from the seller’s and buyer's perspectives.