When a nonresident alien sells an interest in a U.S. partnership, a straightforward sourcing rule has governed since the enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), Pub. L. No. 115- 97, 131 Stat. 2054: income from the sale is U.S.-source (and hence taxable).
While Rawat eventually paid the requested amount (plus penalties, interest, and other adjustments), she promptly petitioned the Tax Court for a refund, contending that the inventory gain was foreign- source income and therefore nontaxable.
Section 751(a) states: The amount of any money, or the fair market value of any property, received by a transferor partner in exchange for all or a part of his interest in the partnership attributable to—
There had arisen, however, a practice of partners using that rule to skirt ordinary-income taxes they otherwise would owe by disposing of their partnership interests before realizing income, in an effort to obtain more favorable capital-gains treatment.
The Report later states: “The statutory treatment proposed, in general, regards the income rights [from § 751(a) property] as severable from the partnership interest and as subject to the same tax consequences which would be accorded an individual entrepreneur.” Id. at 71.