Highlights of some of our favorite tax-related blogs from the past week.
Taxed to the limit
Mauled Again: How your Mazda sliding into a ditch in recent weeks made a strident argument for more salt and plows on municipal roads, which in term made a stronger argument like it or not for taxes. Additional snowy notes on how nature-batter spots in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, and the New York City area have already burned through their winter budgets and now face clear choices to handle a snowfall shortfall.The Income Tax School: A look at final regs regarding the Employer Shared Responsibility provisions under Section 4980H of the IRS Code. Also, the benefits of a community when blogging.Rubin on Tax: How applicable federal rates fared over the past 21 years. “A reverse of the declines of recent years,” the blogger notes. “Whether the increase in the past year will continue and be the start of a major reversal in trend, or whether it is only a short-term deviation from the long-term downtrend, is anyone’s guess.”Tax Policy: “Empirical Evidence on Taxes and Growth: A Response to CBPP” pokes back at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities for its recent response to the blogger’s review of empirical studies on taxes and economic growth. “The results consistently point to significant negative effects of taxes on economic growth even after controlling for various other factors such as government spending, business cycle conditions, and monetary policy,” the blogger’s conclusion ran at the time. The CBPP objects, in detail.Taxable Talk: You got to know when to declare ’em. Tax impacts of the remission payments from the debris of FullTiltPoker, an online game and betting site recently shuttered. First payments were due around now and how much of the money will count as income? What about 1099s? (Answers, as is typical of gambling: “It depends.”)Taxes at About.com: A look at the Tax Foundation’s calculations of the highest marginal tax rate on long-term capital gains for individual taxpayers in each state.Roth & Co.: How Iowa made the above list.
Order, order
TaxProf: Non-resident owners of NYC residential property catch a break on taxes, thanks to the Empire State’s Court of Appeals, which recently gave the Bronx cheer to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance’s long-time desire to tax any non-resident who spends more than 183 days in New York.John R. Dundon II EA blog: “Allowable Nontaxable IRA Rollovers Contributions Interpreted to Mean One Per Taxpayer Per Tax Year in U.S. Tax Court Case,” specifically Bobrow v. Commissioner. A look at how the court relied on IRC 408(d)(3)(B) “regarding the limits and frequency of nontaxable rollover contributions elected by the taxpayer,” noting that the one-year limitation addressed in this section of the code applies to all an individual taxpayer’s IRAs.
Hi ho, hi ho
Tax Break: The TurboTax blog: You Can’t Tell Them Too Often Dept.: What documents your clients need to complete their filing. Once again, that’s what documents your clients need to complete their filing.Tax Vox: Yet again it’s time to have and withhold: updates to the site’s marriage bonus and penalty calculator, which this year lets you compare a couple’s tax liability, whether they file as single or married for either 2013 or 2014. Also, blogger Howard Gleckman examines how 19 million uninsured filers might rate ACA coverage.TaxMama: Mama helps on whether $2,345.60 in dividends from a typical domestic stock index fund is taxed at capitals gains rates or regular income tax rate if it’s a qualified dividend.Backtaxeshelp: Four neat ways to lower clients’ taxes before they file, especially those in the 39.6 percent bracket where new net investment income and Medicare surtaxes are poised to ignite.Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders: What’s the difference between a coach and mentor? Blogger Rita Keller breaks down which is which in terms of orientation, time, results and other factors.Don’t Mess With Taxes: Want to get away from taxes for a while? Escape into David Foster Wallace’s posthumous novel The Pale King, which is about the tedium of working in an IRS office. Or try Innocent Spouse, Carol Ross Joynt’s memoir of a widow who too late discovers her deceased beloved’s tax mess. Then there’s always Uncle Al Capone, in which “Scarface’s niece argues that her relative was railroaded by the IRS.”
