Representing a married couple always brings with it the risk that the interests of the two parties won’t be in alignment, creating a conflict of interest issue. That may be true even when the adviser reasonably concludes that both spouses agree to a course of action, that initial “waiver” of the conflict does not serve to ensure that the same conflict won’t again become a problem in the engagement.

The case of Gebman v. Commissioner, TC Memo 2017-184 deals with issues that arose for an attorney representing a client before the Tax Court, but similar issues and problems can arise for CPAs well before a tax dispute ends up in court, so a review of what happened in this case is useful for all practitioners.