In the Blogs: At Your Service

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

At your Service

  • Taxable Talk: A lucky guy from a country that has no tax treaty with the U.S. won $100,000 in a recent World Series of Poker. The hosting casino withheld 30 percent of that for the IRS, and Mr. Lucky wants to know if he has a chance of getting any of that back from the feds. Raise or call?
  • Taxing Subjects: A look at the recent IRS reminder that taxpayers who receive a PTC advance should remember the changes that can alter their tax sitch next April.
  • The Tax Times: National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson has again expressed concern about the “Future State” plans of the IRS, including the possibility of online taxpayer accounts.
  • Tax Policy: A recent study examines the impact of wealth taxes on wealth accumulation. We’re only shooting in the dark here, but we’re guessing that taxes make it harder for you to accumulate wealth, unless you happen to be the IRS.

Not a kid anymore

  • H&R Block blog: “Happy 26th birthday!” you might say to a client. Be sure to add, “Now go get your own health insurance.”
  • Rubin on Tax: Careful how clients word a will, especially if there’s a revocable trust involved.

Good reputations

  • The Income Tax School: Best ways to grow your home-based prep business.
  • ClientWhys: The online reputation of your practice is critical – and almost impossible to keep completely free of problems. Best practices and insights on reputation management, including how to address a negative online review. (“The first step, do not panic or get emotional …” And, we’d add, put down the hammer.)
  • Dinesen Tax Times: From the archives but still hot as a two-for-one special today: “Do Extreme Couponers Pay Tax?”
  • Tax Analysts: Say one thing for incoming British PM Theresa May: She released four years’ worth of her own tax returns while her opponent released one.
  • Roth & Co.: A look at a congresswoman and her staffer charged with ripping off the very nonprofit the former started, which leads into our favorite line of the week: “The Florida Democrat allegedly believed charity begins and ends at home.”
  • Due Diligence: In this week’s collection: “Startling New Medicaid Fraud Report – Medical Transportation”; “Bribery & Corruption = FCPA Whistleblower Awards”; “Doc Guilty in Medicare Fraud Lab Referral Scheme”; “Charitable Donation or Kickback?”; and “$3 Billion in False Claims Act Recoveries ‘Isn’t Enough’? We Agree!”

Big monies

  • Procedurally Taxing: A look at United States v. Heptner, which demonstrates the lien priority status of purchase money mortgages vis-a-vis the federal tax lien.
  • BNA blogs: Knows Not Where He’s Going To Dept.: How corporations making sales in more than one state can reap “nowhere income,” which occurs when the corporation makes sales or shipments of tangible personal property to a destination state in which the receipts are not subject to tax.  
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