Final answer:
Samantha will recognize a capital gain of $50,000 whether she receives a cash payout from the partnership or sells her interest to Rook, based on her initial $60,000 basis and a $110,000 cash transaction. In both scenarios, there are no immediate tax implications for the partnership itself.
Step-by-step explanation:
The scenario involves Samantha, who is leaving a partnership and has two potential options for doing so: receiving a cash payment from the partnership or selling her interest to another partner. In both scenarios, the tax implications for Samantha and the partnership must be analyzed based on the information provided about the partnership's assets and liabilities, as well as Samantha's basis in her partnership interest.
Option A: Cash Payment from Partnership
If Samantha receives a cash payment of $110,000 from the partnership, the tax consequences depend on her outside basis (her investment in the partnership) versus the distribution she receives. Her outside basis is initially $60,000. Since the distribution is in cash and exceeds her basis, Samantha will recognize a gain. Specifically, the gain would be the difference between the cash received ($110,000) and her basis in the partnership ($60,000), resulting in a $50,000 gain. This will be a capital gain, assumed to be long-term based on her many years of ownership.
For the partnership, there would be no immediate income, gain, loss, or deduction as a result of the cash payment to Samantha.
Option B: Sale of Partnership Interest to Rook
If Rook buys Samantha's partnership interest for $110,000, Samantha will also recognize a gain. This will be a capital gain calculated in the same way as Option A. From the partnership's perspective, the sale of an interest between partners does not create a taxable event for the partnership itself. However, there might be secondary effects depending on future activities and elections made by the partnership, such as a Section 754 election, but this was not exercised in the given scenario.