Voices

In the blogs: Double-spaced plans

Deductions for state and local taxes; “stealing from the dead;” how to do away with refundable credits; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Double-spaced plans

  • Taxable Talk (http://www.taxabletalk.com/): The president’s tax plan is more of an outline, and amid the vanishing Alternative Minimum Tax, estate tax and 35 percent corporate rate are lots of landmines for, well, lucky amateur gamblers.
  • Tax Vox (http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org): Reagan’s landmark 1986 reform start with “a phone book-sized description that became known as Treasury I.” Every recent president who proposed tax changes has occasioned hundreds of pages of detail in what’s called the Green Book. Trump produced one page of bullet points. Double-spaced.
  • Tax Policy (http://taxfoundation.org/blog): Stated Plainly Dept.: In honor of President Trump’s most recent tax plan eliminating many itemized deductions including those for state and local taxes, here’s an interactive map showing variation in the amounts of those deductions.
  • M&A (http://taxaid.com/blog/): Ongoing looks at more proposals of the president’s plan/outline/list of goals, including the rate for pass-through businesses, the one-time tax on repatriated overseas profits and conversion from a worldwide tax system to a territorial tax system. Note a previous post on where this all leaves tax advisors.

Rough roads

  • Mauled Again (http://mauledagain.blogspot.com/): No examination of the cost ($600 per repair) and quantity (35,000 in Philadelphia) of potholes is really complete without another hard look at how effectively taxes can fill help them. Also, what St. Louis voters said to a proposal to fund a new soccer stadium.
  • Tax Girl (http://blogs.forbes.com/kellyphillipserb): Eight down, uncounted more to go: the arrest of eight suspects in Miami allegedly responsible for almost $8.8 million in IRS phone scams that defrauded more than 7,000 victims.
  • Due Diligence (http://www.mahanyertl.com/mahanyertl/): In this week’s collection: “Shell Oil Guilty of FCPA Foreign Bribery?” and “Stealing From the Dead.”
  • Bloomberg BNA (http://www.bna.com/news/#!topic=istax&type=isblogpost): Pennsylvania’s Nextel Commc’ns of the Mid-Atlantic Inc. v. Commonwealth challenges a statutory cap on the carryover of prior-year losses with a $4 million refund claim, but also turns the spotlight on the continued validity of NOL caps in Pennsylvania and other states.

Crap and yays

  • Dinesen Tax (http://dinesentax.com/blog): Our favorite headline of the week, “My Tax Season Recap: Business Is Booming, But I’m Starting to Hate this Crap,” precedes our favorite opening: “How was my tax season? Better than 2015 or 2016 in terms of no surgeries or health problems. Yay!”
  • Don’t Mess With Taxes (http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/): Yes, the merry month of May is “particularly joyous for folks who've finished up their 2016 tax returns,” but that doesn’t mean those folks shouldn’t have further tax moves lined up for this month.
  • ClientWhys (http://www.clientwhys.com/blog.iml): New research shows that for businesses relying on prospect confidence and trust – such as yours – local online reviews mean a lot.
  • The Wandering Tax Pro (http://wanderingtaxpro.blogspot.com/): Some from-the-trenches proposals to do away with “perhaps the greatest source of tax fraud and tax return error … the result of the erroneous policy of distributing government welfare and other social program benefits via the Form 1040 or 1040A, especially when this takes the form of a refundable tax credit.”
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