In the Blogs: Partying On

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

Partying on

  • TaxProf Blog: Blogger Paul Caron looks at “The IRS Scandal, Day 809,” including President Obama telling Jon Stewart the service didn’t target Tea Party and other conservative groups. Yet more than half of Americans recently surveyed continue to believe the IRS broke the law.
  • Taxable Talk: Did the IRS use donor lists to target audits? Seems so, according to a recent story in Judicial Watch. More to your point: Are cuts to the IRS budget really just congressional retaliation?
  • Due Diligence: In this week’s roundup: “California Insurance Frauds Prevention Act”; “Where Was the Whistleblower? – Toshiba Accounting Fraud”; “Foreign Aid Fraud and the American Red Cross”; “Securities America Broker Accused of Elder Financial Abuse”; “N.J. Court Sanctions Whistleblower”; and “Three More Swiss Banks Cooperate.”
  • Tax Girl: How 22,000 pieces of mail that a mailman dumped in his own garage included five Treasury checks. Also, back-to-school sales-tax holidays start soon. Most wonderful time of the year!

‘That far back’

  • TaxMama: Mama helps a preparer with a client who hasn’t filed a personal return for eight years and is currently under audit; the preparer wants to know about carrying back NOLs from 2012 to 2010, and forward from 2009 to 2010. “Since these tax returns have never been filed to begin with, does that allow me to go that far back?”
  • H&R Block blog: The tax benefits of saving now for college. Consider it extra credit.
  • TurboTax Blog: Ways to bolster a good credit score. Tip one: “Be patient.”
  • Rubin on Tax: How proposed regs eliminate the need for a taxpayer to file a copy of their Code §83(b) election with their income tax return for the year of the election.
  • John R. Dundon II EA blog: Exceptions allowing for the ITIN application without a return and how to substantiate a claim.
  • Philadelphia Estate and Tax Attorney blog: Golden Opportunity Dept.: Details on the IRS offering eligible small businesses a low-cost penalty relief program regarding the reporting requirements of retirement plans.

Across the seas

  • Federal Tax Crimes: Two more Swiss banks enter NPA resolutions under the DOJ program: SB Saanen and Privatbank Bellerive AG. The penalties: $1.365 million for SB, $57,000 for Privatbank.
  • IRS Problem Solver Blog: Thriller in Manila: A headline tax-evasion case in the Philippines involving unemployment and a $1.28 million LA condo.
  • Tax Vox: The Senate continues its lane-weaving over highway funding, blocking Sen. Ted Cruz’s effort to tie the bill to the Iran deal, among other measures. Also: “Candidate Clinton and capital gains,” Washington State’s competing plans for a carbon tax and a British crackdown on tax-evading online businesses.

The paddles of August

  • Taxjar: Following July’s “perfect storm” regarding sales taxes, “August is more like a paddle on a placid lake.” State-by-state look at when sales taxes are due. 
  • Musings of a Burbank CPA: Home is where the distraction is: A look at a recent Christian Science Monitor story on how to maintain productivity when working from home. Before you read that, did you see that every Mad Men is on Netflix now?
  • The Income Tax School: The advantages of expanding your practice into more specialized returns, from seniors to C-Corps, and a look at the CPE to do so.
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