Voices

In the blogs: Free lunch

The TCJA and havens; making videos for clients; bias in IRS collections; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Free lunch

  • Income Tax School (http://www.theincometaxschool.com/blog/): Tax season may be over for some (pant, pant) but remember the fun never ends for the self-employed (more than a third of whom, it seems, have admitted that they don’t even pay taxes and one in 10 of whom don’t even know about tax reform).
  • TaxProf Blog (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/): One unheralded reason tax reform and new corporate tax cuts are unlikely to stimulate stratospheric job creation and wage growth (besides that high tax rates weren’t pushing much investment out of the U.S. in the first place). Offshore tax havens.
  • Tax Girl (http://blogs.forbes.com/kellyphillipserb): How this year’s winning bidder in a charity auction to have lunch with Warren Buffett may get more than a warm handshake and a stock tip for the $3,300,100 bid. It’s entirely possible that under new provisions of the TCJA, the bidder may qualify for a tax break.
  • The Wandering Tax Pro (http://wanderingtaxpro.blogspot.com/): Clearest opening of the week: “The new Section 199a deduction — 20 percent of pass-through business income — created by the GOP Tax Act makes absolutely no sense.” Not to mention the follow-up question: “Why does it exist?”
  • Boyum and Barenscheer (https://myboyum.com/blog/): What to remind your biz clients about what they got out of the TCJA.

Ready for your closeup?

  • Dinesen Tax Times (http://dinesentax.com/blog): “Iowa’s taxation of married couples has quirks that can throw a taxpayer or tax preparer for a loop,” to the point, it seems, “where common sense would say one thing but Iowa’s tax law says something else.” Kickoff of a series of posts looking at how weird tax-wise it can be to get hitched in this part of the Midwest.
  • Intuit Proconnect (http://taxprocenter.proconnect.intuit.com/): Combine reform, clients’ shrinking attention spans and the prevalence of handheld devices that mean no one’s ever unplugged and what do you get? The need to learn how to start making videos to educate your tax clients.
  • Smith + Gesteland (https://sgcpa.com/resources/focus-blog/): Constantly reassessing your firm’s IT is almost as important as buying the right hardware, software and cloud plan in the first place. Here are some of the right questions about your IT strategy to ask as you go along.
  • Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders (http://ritakeller.com/blog/): At look at tech guru Roman Kepczyk’s and the CPA Firm Management Association’s 2018 IT Survey. The No. 1 tech surprise?

Wayfair looms

  • Procedurally Taxing (http://procedurallytaxing.com): Frequent contributor Carl Smith discusses a case implicating the Tax Court’s ability to determine and order the credit or refund of an overpayment in a Collection Due Process case.
  • National Taxpayer Advocate (https://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/about/nta-blog): Seemed Like an OK Idea at the Time Dep’t.: The IRS private debt collection initiative set private collection agencies against some taxpayers. Problem is, stats now show those taxpayers were likely ones in economic hardship.
  • Tax Foundation (www.taxfoundation.org/blog): The Supreme Court’s looming summer adjournment means decisions in pending cases are due to come down by the end of June. One is South Dakota v. Wayfair case, challenging South Dakota’s application of its sales tax to internet retailers who sell into South Dakota but have no property or employees in the state. What’s at stake.
  • Summing It Up (http://blog.freedmaxick.com/summing-it-up): Two years ago FinCEN issued a final rule on “Customer Due Diligence Requirements for Financial Institutions.” Last month, “after much anticipation and planning,” the new beneficial ownership and CDD rule became effective and financial institutions are now required to comply. A look at key issues and final considerations.
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