Voices

In the blogs: Bigwig breaks

Asian-Americans and the EITC; do corporate tax cuts work?; trusting the IRS; other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Trumps’ moving deduction?

  • Tax Vox (http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org): God knows the Earned Income Tax Credit gets a severe workout in today’s filing environment. So why don’t more eligible Asian-Americans take advantage of this benefit?
  • Dinesen Tax (http://dinesentax.com/blog): Home office deductions used to be the golden egg for freelancing and work-for-themselves clients. Though tougher regs may have turned that egg into silver or even bronze, home office remains a valuable deduction. A look at the “Exclusive Use” Rule.
  • Houston Tax Attorney (http://www.irstaxtrouble.com/category/tax-blog/): Tax penalties often disappear if a taxpayer shows they acted with “reasonable cause” and in good faith. Relying on a competent tax pro can be one way taxpayers demonstrate this. But Whitsett v. Commissioner echoes that question so many of us have asked: “What exactly is a competent tax professional?”
  • Don’t Mess With Taxes (http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/): The first family is reunited, in the White House. But the question on everyone’s mind: Were the moving expenses deductible? What to tell your client even if they’re not headed to Washington.

Bigwig breaks

  • Tax Policy (http://taxfoundation.org/blog): A temporary cut to the corporate income tax rate is substantially less effective at generating economic growth than a permanent cut, and here’s a more detailed look at why.
  • Mauled Again (http://mauledagain.blogspot.com/): “One of the arguments in favor of states’ rights in a federal system is the opportunity for states to serve as experimental laboratories, providing a smaller-scale examination of the effects, benefits, and disadvantages of particular policies.” Well, yes, but will Congress pay attention to the Kansas tax model regarding cuts for the wealthy?
  • Bloomberg BNA (http://www.bna.com/news/#!topic=istax&type=isblogpost): Golden State sourcing rules for dividends and its factor-presence nexus standard could result in an unexpected filing obligation for an out-of-state corporation receiving dividends from a California-based payor. And no we’re not talking about the NBA champs.
  • Sageworks (https://www.sageworks.com/blog/default.aspx): The Financial Accounting Standards Board has released memos “to shed light on implementation questions” occasioned by issues raised about the nuances of implementing its current expected credit loss model. The memos cover determining when beneficial interests should be considered a PCD asset and discounting expected cash flows at the effective interest rate, among other topics.

Service, please

  • Taxable Talk (http://www.taxabletalk.com/): Turns out the IRS is not moving e-Services to a new platform this week, a delay that changes previous announcements to e-Services users.
  • John R. Dundon II EA (http://johnrdundon.com/): Postings on IRS.gov may intimidate you, but are they always legal authority? Or more to the point, “Who can taxpayers trust anymore?”

Not the end

  • Tax Girl (http://blogs.forbes.com/kellyphillipserb): NetChoice, a trade association of Internet companies and organizations, and the American Catalog Mailers Association have filed suit to stop Massachusetts from requiring out-of-state online retailers to collect sales taxes.
  • Due Diligence (http://www.mahanyertl.com/mahanyertl/): In this week’s collection: “Buy America or Face the Consequences!”; Cell Call Recorded Without Permission?”; “Troubled Taxi Owner Sues Accountants for Malpractice”; and “HomeBridge Fraud Investigation.”
  • ClientWhys (http://www.clientwhys.com/blog.iml): Marketing is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. And never comes that pivotal moment you can never recapture: the first impression.
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