In the Blogs: He Shall Return

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

He shall return

  • Tax Vox: Presenting the question of this tumultuous autumn: “Does Donald Trump pay taxes, ever?”
  • Roth & Co.: Notes blogger Joe Kristan, “The most important revelation from the 1995 tax documents is just how much Mr. Trump may have benefited from a tax provision that is particularly prized by America’s dynastic families.”
  • The Wandering Tax Pro: And is it, in fact, smart for Trump to have not paid taxes?
  • Tax Girl: Amid the nearly un-American mess that is this campaign, extract some intelligent questions regarding net operating losses.
  • Backtaxeshelp: What would Clinton’s plans do to big business, “many of the nation’s largest multinational companies [that] play a huge role in the nation’s overall economy as well as its political showdowns.” How many of such companies pay taxes anyway?

Look ma!

  • Taxable Talk: Trump isn’t the only one who didn’t pay taxes. A look at Mario Winans, producer, singer, songwriter, Grammy winner – and, as it turns out, a citizen who paid zilch taxes on $2.8 million gross income.
  • The Tax Times: Won’t Go Away Dept.: “The European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry into Money Laundering, Tax Avoidance, and Tax Evasion has begun its hearings on the ‘Panama Papers’ affair”… Turns out the inquiry committee will also examine the more recent leak of company registry entries from the Bahamas. Higher and deeper.

Gott beer?

  • Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders: The advantages of shaking up the status quo include simply getting better and seizing opportunity. How to stir the pot in your firm.
  • Mauled Again: “Debating the ReadyReturn Proposal, In Writing.” People just keep thinking it is a good concept, the blogger contends, despite overflowing evidence to the contrary.
  • Don’t Mess With Taxes: Four good tax moves to pass onto your clients this month, from finally filing that extended 1040 (“ … now you’re heading into the same panic situation ... ”) to contributing to retirement accounts.
  • Turbotax: As they used to say in our favorite war comic, Sgt. Rock, “Gott in himmel!” How is your Oktoberfest beer taxed? Is nothing heilig?
  • Taxjar: What goes into a good privacy page of an e-commerce site.
  • Dinesen Tax Times: The blogger needs help writing an Iowa tax guidebook. Among the state’s oddities: The MFS status in Iowa is totally different from the federal concept of MFS.
  • BNA blogs: How states are being urged to diverge from two aspects of new federal partnership audit rules.
  • Procedurally Taxing: If you too have wondered about the IRS Art Advisory Panel’s recent closed meeting to review and evaluate the fair market value appraisals of works of art involved in federal income, estate, and gift tax returns, bear in mind that over almost a decade this blogger’s low-income clients raised not one issue to ignite concern over such a subject (though the issues certainly do come up in other venues).
  • H&R Block: What to tell Millennials who marvel that they owe taxes.
  • IRS Problem Solver Blog: What should they do with that CP2000 Letter from the IRS?
  • Liberty Tax: And while we’re at it, who needs an ITIN, anyway?

Scam do

  • Due Diligence: In this week’s collection: “Anatomy of a Fraud – U.S. v Allied Home Mortgage Goes to Trial”; “Whistleblower Gets $228,750 in Chinese Import Case”; “Health Information Coder to Get $5 Million Award”; and “BB&T Pays $83 Million Settles Mortgage False Claims Act Beef.”
  • Taxing Subjects: The growing trend of scammers targeting tax pros, and the five security steps you’re highly encouraged to take.
For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Tax practice Tax franchises Tax tools
MORE FROM ACCOUNTING TODAY