In the Blogs: The 800,000

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

The 800,000

  • Tax Girl: Know somebody who bought insurance through healthcare.gov and got one of those 800,000 botched 1095-As? Seems some 50,000 taxpayers had already filed when the goofs reared their heads, and the Treasury now concedes that the IRS won’t tap additional taxes from those taxpayers. Seems to us that when such situations are reversed, the tone and action gets longer and much more dark.
  • The Wandering Tax Pro: Robert Flach, in his long-awaited FAKAWI entry, gives his by-the-numbers breakdown of the first third of the season. Of note: “I have yet to do a return where I did not check the ‘full-year coverage’ box [and] I have not done any returns, other than my own, that involved a 1095-A. I received one, and was about to start it, when the client e-mailed to tell me his was one of the 800,000 FUs.”

Quality family crime

  • Taxable Talk: They say the most important thing in life is your loved ones. Three Milwaukee-area sisters recently – and allegedly – took this mantra a step further into tax fraud and ID theft. How the Staten sisters, only 22 to 40 years old, are accused by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue of filing 2,000 phony returns. If you try this at home, kids, remember two handy words: prison inmates.
  • Due Diligence: In this week’s roundup: “Send in the Clowns - Tax Protesters and Audit Defense”; “Bank of America and HSBC – ‘Source of Shame’ ”; “Jersey Doc Accused of Medicaid, Medicare Fraud”; “Small-Time Bank, Big-Time Fraud”; and “Taxation of Foreign Pension Plans and Social Security Benefits.”
  • IRS Problem Solver Blog: “Possible Criminal Charges against IRS” examines “a potentially major scandal that may be about to explode,” the undying flap over thousands of supposedly lost e-mails that in fact may reside on more than 400 backup tapes.

Foreign interests

  • Rubin on Tax: What does happen to the earnings and profits of a domestic parent corporation of a controlled foreign corporation when the former must include income under current rules?
  • Tax, Society & Culture: A look at a new paper on unilateral enforcement of foreign tax judgments.
  • The Tax Times: The Jet Age did more than make the globe smaller. It also fertilized the mushrooming of cross-border tax situations. A look at the numerous estate tax treaties between the U.S. and some 20 other countries that minimize the federal estate tax.

Since they’re in your office anyway

  • Don’t Mess With Taxes: How March is a minefield of deadlines for business filers. Plus, overall tips for reducing this year’s taxes.
  • TaxMama: Mama explains the tax breaks associated with home schooling.
  • Bond Beebe’s It’s Taxing: New IRS guidance on tangible property regs eases the process of adopting the new regulations for small business, a much-needed boon.
  • John R. Dundon II blog: To an athlete deducting young: Young pro jocks and their even-more-novice managers are running headlong into anything but a cheap shot – namely that money earned playing is subject to income tax at both the federal and state level. A look at a recent case involving a high-tax state.
  • Taxes at About.com: Basics to tell clients about health savings accounts. To start, they can be double tax-free.
  • Taxing Subjects: A look at recent IRS guidance on early retirement distributions, including additional taxes on early withdrawals, nontaxable withdrawals, check exceptions and more.

Just a suggestion

  • Roth & Co.: Simple ways to make Iowa’s tax climate a little less frosty (along with a few slightly harder ones), including axing the state’s individual and corporate AMT, syncing Iowa’s tax law federal changes and encouraging “composite” returns or withholding for pass-through non-resident taxpayers.
  • TaxProf: The paper “Recent Developments in Federal Income Taxation: The Year 2014” ignites some familiar phrases from blogger Paul Caron, notably “Most Treasury regulations … are so complex that they cannot be discussed in detail and, anyway, only a devout masochist would read them all the way through.”

New to us

  • Taxjar: Sales tax for e-commerce is the fare here, where this time out blogger Mark Faggiano looks at the ins and outs of Tennessee sales tax. Recent topics concerning Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) also include the 1099-K, determining a nexus and a state-by-state guide to sales tax. Welcome aboard.
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