In the Blogs: Go, and Deduct No More

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

Fill in the blanks

  • Taxable Talk: An intriguing in-the-trenches look at just how “****ed” up the Tax Code is and the increasingly distant dream that is true reform.
  • The Tax Times: Wondering how the IRS “will perceive your client’s OVDP filing, with your associated requests for lower penalties or with some other legal tax position regarding your client, which is based upon relevant legal precedent? Well wonder no longer.” Seems the IRS came up a little short with documents after the Freedom of Information Act was recently invoked.
  • Bond Beebe’s It’s Taxing: A look at our gallant representatives’ recent cavalry charge to save one-year tax extenders (Accounting Today). A list of the major provisions.
  • Tax, Society & Culture: It can also happen there: “Canada Revenue Agency accidentally sent a database full of confidential taxpayer info to the CBC.”

Hear ye

  • A Taxing Matter: It seems taxpayers Peter and Kathleen Kuretski admitted on a return to owing the feds almost $25,000. They then secured an OIC – which they then didn’t honor, either. The case’s subsequent jaunt up the court system to its final – and we think inevitable, given the details – decision.
  • Tax Girl: How a whistleblower alleges that one of the bulwarks of man-on-the-street investing – Vanguard – used illegal manipulated transfers to cheat on taxes to the tune of more than $1 billion. That’s B as in billion, and Bogle.
  • Due Diligence: In this week’s roundup: “Will Supreme Court Consider Whistleblower Cover-Up Case?”; “Restaurant Owner Headed to Prison for False Tax Returns”; “IRS Guidance on ‘Willful’ FBAR Penalties”; “House Calls, Michigan and Medicare Fraud”; “Crooked Chiro Gets Prison for Tax Evasion”; and “Jury Convicts Two in Medicare Fraud Scam.”

I(heart)RA

  • The Wandering Tax Pro: Buttering Up the Master Dept.: How everybody ought to have an IRA.
  • Tax Maven: “So let’s say you’ve run the year-end tax projections and convinced your client to convert some of his or her traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. Maybe your client has even agreed to pay a little income tax this year to convert.” As so often happens in this business, you’re not done.
  • Backtaxeshelp: Blogger Rebecca Lake looks at coming changes for tax-deferred retirement accounts and health savings accounts.

Let’em in

  • The Income Tax School: A neat marketing twist on the traditional office holiday party at your practice: an open house for current clients and prospects, new contacts and social media fans and followers, to name a few.
  • Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders: Easing your clients’ experience with you, via Starbucks and the speed of getting a tall latte with skim.
  • Taxes at About.com: Nuts and bolts of the Premium Assistance Tax Credit. At least one nugget of ACA info gets clearer. About 5 million to go. Plus, go and deduct no more: tax planning for clergy.
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