In the Blogs: Lost in the Mail

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

Fear itself

  • Tax Girl: “Top five things that taxpayers are irrationally afraid of and shouldn’t be.” Aggressive deductions, audits, lack of cash for the tax bill, IRS letters. We guess it depends on how you define “irrationally.”
  • Taxjar: On the sales-tax front this week: Shipping in the Nutmeg State, plus one of life’s biggest questions, namely “Why am I Getting Audited?”
  • Taxable Talk: The major difference between excellent wine and an IRS notice (one clue is “dust”) constitutes Bozo Tax Tip No. 1.
  • Taxes at About.com: And don’t forget the tax deadlines for the rest of this year.

Lost in the mail

  • Procedurally Taxing: Guest blogger Carl Smith and more on Godfrey v. Commissioner, and how an apparently wayward notice of intention to levy can create all sorts of troubles and litigation.
  • Rubin on Tax: One scenario where – “Surprisingly yes!” – a 1040 omission can lead to an extended statute of limitations for a Form 706 or 1041.
  • Taxing Subjects: Half Right Anyway Dept.: Is the IRS unnecessary or just unpopular? The trouble with fear – like the public has felt for generations now toward the taxman – is that it can morph into something stronger. Either feeling can mean complications for preparers.

Cheesy

  • The Tax Times: How more Swiss banks that rich Americans used to dodge taxes are about to start cooperating with the feds.
  • Due Diligence: In this week’s roundup: “LPL Financial Settles TIC Fraud Case”; “N.J. Doc Pleads Guilty to Phantom Surgeries”; “Filthy Pharma – Pyramid Laboratories”; “Stockbrokers’ Dirty Secret”; “Missing Humvees and Whistleblowers”; “Ellwood Jones Revisited”; “Call to Whistleblowers – Hep C Drugs Cost Taxpayers $4.7 Billion!”; and “Investigating Paul Jablon and Mark Sindrich.”

Paydays

  • Tax Maven: A look at seven keys to granting profits interests in a partnership, an arrangement that startups love as a retention tactic.
  • Solutions For CPA Firm Leaders: Can happy employees truly improve your practice? Probably some practitioners will never know.
  • TaxMama: Mama helps a reader who started collecting Social Security at 62, just recently started working again part time, and wonders why Social Security still gets deducted from his paycheck.
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