GeoffreyG
New Member

Business & farm

Yours is a very difficult question under the tax code, which is probably why no one has attempted to answer it yet.

The nature of the loss (whether capital or ordinary) upon the disposition or abandonment of a partnership interest is a really hard thing to determine, even sometimes for tax professionals.

Usually, that determination is made at the partnership level, if the partnership has a CPA or Lawyer prepare its final Form 1065 return, and the accompanying Schedule K-1s.  When that happens properly, the capital loss or ordinary loss question is answered for you by the various Schedule K-1 papers.  In other words, the individual K-1 boxes and supplemental filing instructions should tell you how to treat the loss.

However, lacking this information, I can offer you the following quote:


"Taxpayers normally prefer ordinary losses to capital losses.  To incur an ordinary loss as opposed to a capital loss from the abandonment of a partnership interest, based on IRS Revenue Rulling 93-80, a taxpayer needs to eliminate the deemed sale resulting from a reduction in a liability allocated to the taxpayer under US Title 26, Section 752."


My source is the well-written and knowledgeable tax article here:

http://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2016/feb/taxation-of-worthless-and-abandoned-partnership-interes...


This article explains in much more detail what I would labor to tell you:  the legal and true answer to your question is that it depends.

If you are uncomfortable making this determination yourself, or you do not understand this article (it is very technical) then we would respectfully suggest that you take what documentation you do have to a local tax professional, such as a CPA, Enrolled Agent, or Lawyer, to help you arrive at the proper partnership tax treatment.  It is honestly beyond our ability to diagnose here at TurboTax, unless we had all of the necessary information on the partnership(s).

Thank you for asking this thoughtful and challenging question.