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In the blogs: Learning curves

Forgiveness; great sums of money; shell game; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Learning curves

  • Taxable Talk (http://www.taxabletalk.com/): How will the IRS tax forgiven portions of student loans? How will states? When’s the guidance coming and when should taxpayers file? We have answers to some of these but definitely not all.  
  • Henry+Horne (https://www.hhcpa.com/blogs/): And two words of warning about planning too much on the above: “Republicans” and “courts.”
  • Canopy (https://www.getcanopy.com/blog): How can accountants leverage practice management software? Three points: Learn what accounting practice management software is and what it’s capable of doing; start using it. What’s number three?
  • Taxing Subjects (https://www.drakesoftware.com/blog): Aside from somebody suddenly addressing you as Ginger or Mary Ann, what are the signs you’ve been a victim of ID theft?
  • Parametric (https://www.parametricportfolio.com/blog):  As portfolios and investor needs change, tax-management strategies must evolve beyond tax loss harvesting. Here are four other opportunities to minimize tax liabilities. 
  • Palm Beach Accounting and Financial Services (https://www.pbafs.com/blog): How to think about finances for your kids when your kids are pushing 30.
  • Tax Pro Center (https://proconnect.intuit.com/taxprocenter/): What to remind them about business travel and deductions.
  • HallCPA (https://www.therealestatecpa.com/blog): Should your real estate clients consider an outsourced CFO?
  • Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders (http://ritakeller.com/blog/): Remember in “Monsters, Inc.” how they scared because they cared? In your firm, “confront” for the same reason. 
  • Tax Vox (https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/): Immigrant parents were less likely to have heard about the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit than parents who were born in the U.S., according to a recent survey. They also put the cash to different uses.

Not stupid

  • National Taxpayer Advocate (https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/taxnews-information/blogs-nta/): The IRS has made what some call the unprecedented move of forgiving loads of failure-to-file and other penalties from certain 2019 and 2020 returns.
  • Tax Foundation (https://taxfoundation.org/blog): There’s been a lot of debate about funding for the IRS, “one of the biggest winners” in the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act. Much talk has centered on the agency’s budget, staffing and effectiveness. Turns out IRS.gov has a considerable amount of data to help clarify these issues.
  • The Wandering Tax Pro (http://wanderingtaxpro.blogspot.com/): BTW, “there are not great sums of money to be found by auditing average middle-class taxpayers. Whatever you may think of the IRS, the service is not stupid and it knows this.” 
  • The Tax Times (https://www.thetaxtimes.com): The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has found, in a review of case history narratives for sampled taxpayers, no instances in which the field collection employee violated a taxpayer’s rights. Yet though most field collection employees “appeared to be familiar with the direct contact provisions and fair tax collection practices,” not all revenue officers are familiar with the requirements of the provisions.
  • Gordon Law (https://gordonlawltd.com/blog/): A look at the new, supposedly improved but certainly longer crypto question on the coming 1040s.
  • National Association of Tax Professionals (https://blog.natptax.com/): The notion that Free File will kill the tax prep industry is about as valid as a client trying to deduct Tagalog lessons for their cat. Here’s why.
  • Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (https://itep.org/category/blog/): With four major tax policy provisions, the IRA takes a huge step toward a fairer Tax Code and a more equitable economy. But as always, there are more steps lawmakers should take.

What a shock

  • Don’t Mess with Taxes (http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/): A look at a recent Senate Finance Committee report that describes the “shockingly easy” process involving shell companies abroad.
  • Federal Tax Crimes (http://federaltaxcrimes.blogspot.com/): A look at the key steps in the aforementioned simple process.
  • Current Federal Tax Developments (https://www.currentfederaltaxdevelopments.com/): How two too many choices caused a charitable remainder trust to lose out on both.
  • TaxConnex (https://www.taxconnex.com/blog-): Continuity’s important in many parts of life. Why sales tax services are one of them.
  • Boyum & Barenscheer (https://www.myboyum.com/blog/): Nonprofits are just like you and me. They’re stronger with more revenue streams. 
  • Sikich (https://www.sikich.com/insights/): It’s not uncommon for nonprofits to be allowed to use real estate or equipment for no (or de minimis) payment or for amounts that are below market rents. That can make it challenging, though, to understand how a nonprofit is to apply the new lease accounting guidance in ASC 842.

Favorites of the week

  • Rosenberg Associates (https://rosenbergassoc.com/blog/): Opening one: “Common choices are not always the best choices….” Three bags of Doritos aside, one industry example is a common decision by smaller multi-partner firms — “that train wreck of a compensation system called a formula to allocate partner income.” Why it’s flawed and what to use instead.
  • TaxProf Blog (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/): Opening two: “To say the Internal Revenue Code is complex is like saying a virus is hard to see.” How the Tax Court has taught us a consequence of that complexity: the meaning and scope of one statute altered by the later addition of another.
  • Rubin on Tax (http://rubinontax.floridatax.com/): Headline: “Landmark Florida Supreme Court Decision on Homestead Protections Has Been Written Out of the Law by Two Appellate Courts, and No One Appears to Have Noticed.”