In the Blogs: Great Galloping Gavels

Highlights of some of our favorite tax-related blogs from the past week.

A lists

  • Rubin on Tax: Another entry in the series looking at delinquent FBAR submission procedures. Also, AFRs for August.
  • Tax Vox: Australia repeals its two-year-old carbon tax, the U.S. House votes to add another $16.2 billion to the deficit over 10 years (we think we’ll add to ours, too) and the Senate seeks to bypass the Finance Committee on internet taxation. Also, could a sizzling new M&A trend – corporate inversions – torpedo tax reform?

Clients first

  • Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders: Nothing beats shiny and new when it comes to toys, significant others and clients. Step back from newness for a second – and from ceaselessly cranking out articles, advertising and direct-mail copy and from Tweeting and Liking yourself silly – and remember that “spending money, time and effort on people who already like you is much more productive and profitable.” That is, your existing clients – and your best prospects for both repeat and new business.
  • Liberty Tax blog: What to advise a client who feels ready to buy a home. Also, “Job Search Opportunities & Tax Tips.”
  • Mauled Again: The ongoing tax-myth series reminds us how the flat tax is anything but simple (“For the past several decades, advocates of the flat tax have argued its simplicity by focusing on rate structures and ignoring everything else…”).
  • The Income Tax School: As acronyms for tax prep qualifications fly through the mainstream media (wherever that is), here’s how to stand out from unqualified tax preparers by starting with the new IRS Annual Filing Season Certificate.
  • Tax Break: The TurboTax blog: Few American generations are going to have to know how to scrimp and save like our kids. How to teach kids the value of a penny or a $100 bill. Plus, “5 Most Common Affordable Care Act Questions Answered.”
  • TaxMama: Mama helps a reader with Backdoor Roth IRA contributions.
  • Fromm on Taxes: Marriage’s tax changes. Why not? It changes everything else.

Great galloping gavels

  • Taxable Talk: Rains It Pours Dept.: A look at Ridgely v. Lew, the recent decision challenging the IRS’s “proclaimed authority to regulate fee arrangements entered into by CPAs for preparing and filing ordinary refund claims before the commencement of any adversarial proceedings with the IRS or any formal legal representation by the CPA.” A mouthful we’ll all hear more about.
  • Procedurally Taxing: More RvL and how implications of Loving ripple beyond the IRS’s ability to regulate unlicensed preparers. Also, the latest NTA Objectives Report.

Step right up

  • Don’t Mess With Taxes: “Philadelphia Loses Effort to Collect $1.5 Million From Strip Clubs” looks at how adults-only clubs in the city of Brotherly Love (change slogan?) won’t have to pay added taxes for semi-private dances performed at the entertainment spots. Judgment stems from the city's Tax Review Board determination last fall that Philadelphia’s amusement-tax law is so vague that it can only be reasonably applied to a club’s cover charge (and presumably not the uncover charge).
  • Tax Policy: Another look at the Philadelphia sitch re: laps, with a nod toward the city’s existing taxes. Writes blogger Joseph Henchman, “If you buy something in Philadelphia, you pay an 8% sales tax. But if that something is an amusement … the state doesn't tax it although the city taxes it at 5%. Why such purchases should get preferential tax treatment is beyond me, but it’s also led to disputes over what counts as an ‘amusement’ and what doesn’t.”
  • H&R Block blog: As pro football training camps kick off in the mid-summer sun, here’s a look at a few NFL rookies with big stats, big names, big contracts and potentially big tax bills. First up: Houston linebacker Jadeveon Clowney, who inked a deal worth some $40 million and who stands to pocket almost $7 million just in his first season.
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