In the Blogs: Whistleblower While You Work

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

Disaster written all over it

  • Taxjar: Guest blogger Deborah Sweeney of MyCorporation, a Californian who lives under the threat of El Niño (to name just one of dozens of possible natural disasters), examines how such messes can affect small businesses, especially regarding deductions.
  • Taxes at About.com: How religious leaders can get the IRS blessing on certain deductions.
  • Liberty Tax: What to tell clients about special enrollment periods for Medicare and Medicaid.
  • The Income Tax School: “Crickets in January, flocks in March and April.” Another tax season, and as the flocks close in, here’s a baker’s dozen ways to streamline ops and serve more clients in less time.
  • Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders: A customized, perhaps cute card from out of the blue makes a heck of a marketing tool.

Whistleblower while you work

  • Due Diligence: In this week’s collection: “Schumer Finds False ‘Made in America’ Goods”; “Ameriprise Financial Denies Its Own Whistleblower Policy”; “Small Banks and Punitive Damage Awards”; “Raytheon Faces Billion-Dollar Whistleblower Lawsuit”; “TIC Time Bomb Looming – $30 Billion in Loans Coming Due.”
  • Federal Tax Crimes: A look at Whistleblower 22716-13W v. Commissioner, in which the Tax Court ruled that collections of FBAR penalties arising from Whistleblower claims are not in the award base.

Lots of questions

  • Mauled Again: World War, Cold War, Soda War? “The Russian Sugar and Fat Tax Proposal: Smarter, More Sensible, or Just A Need for More Revenue?” Or, more to the point, what to tax if the goal is health improvement?
  • Tax Analysts: Mitt Romney (“in the news a lot for a man not running for president”), tax reform and deficit negligence. Oh, and as we might remember the name of a now-discontinued dessert topping from our childhood, “The 47 Percent.”
  • BNA Bloomberg Software: How many of your clients (especially your business clients) might soon turn to cloud-based individual tax planning?
  • Tax Vox: Renu Zaretsky looks at how the House Ways & Means Subcommittee on Tax Policy won’t have its draft ready by the first quarter in time for a hearing to review operations and enrollment under the ACA site.
  • BNA blogs: Our favorite line of the week: “In accounting standard-setting circles … financial reporting issues stemming from climate change and policy responses to it remain on the back burner.” Pass the sunblock.

Just be patent

  • The Tax Times: Trouble in paradise? Department of Justice efforts to unearth offshore funds seem to be succeeding, as a pair of Cayman Island firms became the latest to turn over records to the IRS.
  • Tax Policy: A patent box, or “innovation box,” is a tax policy that provides a lower tax rate on income related to intellectual property. And recently it had a very bad week.
  • Rubin on Tax: A look at recent IRS audit instructions for outbound Sec. 482 transactions, including how examiners must request 10 documentary and analysis items that the regulations require to avoid a 40 percent penalty.
  • Procedurally Taxing: Guest blogger David Vendler discusses the “claim of right” doctrine in a setting involving a receiver acting on behalf of a group of defrauded consumers who seek recovery of taxes paid by the entity that defrauded them.
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