In the blogs: Amidst the hullabaloo

Stress and other disasters; federal deductions and income segregation; Olson’s retirement; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Amidst the hullabaloo

• TaxMama (http://taxmama.com): Mama looks at the recent crop of extended extenders that “will buy us two years of (relative) certainty about our tax lives.”
• SageNext (https://www.thesagenext.com/blog): “Amidst the hullabaloo of the possible government shutdown take-two and the confusion over the new Tax Code, the filing season has begun.” A rundown of how the biggest changes affect all of us.
• Solutions For CPA Firm Leaders (http://ritakeller.com/blog/): You’re a preparer with several years’ experience. You’ve done many things, big and small, that have helped many of your clients. Why you should write about it.
• Intuit Proconnect (https://proconnect.intuit.com/taxprocenter/): According to the American Institute of Stress, 80 percent of workers feel stress on the job, and you probably feel like all of them right about now in the season. ProConnect authors tell how they reduce stress.
• Don’t Mess with Taxes (http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/): What to tell clients about getting tax help with losses from natural disasters.
• Summing It Up (http://blog.freedmaxick.com/summing-it-up): The headlines scream at you about a recent high-profile data breach and you worry your system could be the next victim. Maybe you pay an expert big bucks for a really, really nice-looking report. What to do when that report turns out to be basically unactionable.
• Avalara (https://www.avalara.com/us/en/blog.html): California is on track to enforce remote sales tax collection starting April 1 (what better day and month for a new tax move?). But state lawmakers are working to amend the rule and impose a collection requirement on marketplace facilitators.
• Bloomberg BNA (https://www.bna.com/news/#!topic=tax&type=blogpost&page=1): New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, joined by Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington, have launched a campaign to restore the full deductibility of SALT from taxable federal income. The discussion rages among the blue and the red.

Weed all about it

• Federal Tax Crimes (http://federaltaxcrimes.blogspot.com/): In Feinberg v. Commissioner, the taxpayers were shareholders in an LLC selling medical marijuana. Their sales were legal under state law, illegal under federal. At issue: whether they bore the burden of proving that they were entitled to deductions related to the business.
• Tax Vox (https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox): A comprehensive and accessible analysis of trade, immigration and international taxation. Point first: “Trump’s 2016 election victory is evidence that economists have done a terrible job explaining the benefits of borders that are more open to goods, services and human capital.”
• Tax Foundation (https://taxfoundation.org/blog): Mauvais Mouvement Dept.: The contention here is that the proposed digital services tax in France would pinpoint a select group of companies “and could end up taxing businesses that are not profitable.”

Rights you are

• Procedurally Taxing (http://procedurallytaxing.com/): Under Section 7602(c)(1), the IRS must provide the taxpayer with “reasonable notice in advance” before it summons records from financial institutions, employers or other third parties and has argued that its “Your Rights as a Taxpayer” publication suffices. There was no published circuit court opinion on the issue until the Ninth Circuit’s recent opinion in JB v United States, “Your Rights” may not have loomed as large as the service thought.
• Rubin on Tax (http://rubinontax.floridatax.com/): A recent case illustrates how beneficiaries and recipients of property from a decedent do not receive the property free and clear from estate tax liabilities.
• TaxProf Blog (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/): A recent presentation makes the “novel argument” that the federal deduction for local taxes rewards, and likely contributes to, economic segregation.
• Mauled Again (http://mauledagain.blogspot.com/): Remember 40 years ago, when the IRS, after deciding to seize a car from a couple who owed back taxes, smashed the windows of the car and dragged the couple out? How could tax collection get worse? Well, a look at what happened regarding recent overdue dog taxes in one German town.

Error-free

• Houston Tax Attorney (http://www.irstaxtrouble.com/blog/): With our tax system, taxpayers are generally required to file returns to tell the IRS how much tax is due — no easy task. Errors happen and Congress has authorized the IRS to correct mathematical and clerical errors made on tax returns. A look at the math-error powers of the IRS.
• IRS Mind (https://www.irsmind.com/): How the taxpayers’ best friend, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, is retiring at a time of supreme crisis at the IRS.
• Tax Girl (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/): According to a recent report from the Taxpayer Advocate, the “20 Most Serious Problems Facing Taxpayers” include IRS failure to answer the right tax-law questions at the right time and the IRS Office of Chief Counsel apparently wanting to keep its analysis secret “when taxpayers need guidance more than ever.”
• National Taxpayer Advocate (https://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/about/nta-blog): The NTA looks back over her time and the work she did and the work still to be done.