Police Officer's Cash-Out of Vacation and Sick Time Wasn't a Payment in Lieu of Comp

Lump-sum payments an injured Los Angeles Police Department detective received upon his retirement for unused vacation and accrued sick leave do not constitute payments for a personal injury or illness in lieu of workers' compensation. Accordingly, these payments could not be excluded from the calculation of his gross income for tax purposes, the United States Tax Court ruled last week. The Internal Revenue Service determined that Clarence Speer and his wife owed $68,179 on their federal income taxes from 2009. That was when Speer retired after over two decades of service as an LAPD offic...