Voices

In the blogs: Taxes in space

A stack of wants; the IRS and Equifax; limits to the Form 2848; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Taxes in space

  • Mauled Again (http://mauledagain.blogspot.com/): The glare of history is bright indeed on the latest claims that tax cuts for the wealthy will fuel the economy, despite how “the current administration and some nostalgic members of Congress want to relive the failed experience.”
  • TaxProf (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/): A look at the recent academic presentation “A Tax Credit to Make Work Really Pay,” especially timely with the ever-stagnant middle-class barely keeping up with inflation and, let’s face it, unlikely to budge any time soon no matter how loud the rhetoric.
  • Tax Vox (http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org): Talk about timely! The “Eight Lessons on How to Design Tax Reform” touch on the invalidity of past reform tactics, building reform “from a stack of wants,” and the importance of principles over symbols, among other pearls for our age.
  • Tax Policy (http://taxfoundation.org/blog): The Republican Framework “would probably” be a net tax cut for lower middle-income Americans, but the devil may be in the still-nebulous details.
  • Don’t Mess With Taxes (http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/): How one local brief penny-per-ounce soda tax fizzled, popped, went flat … whatever you call it, the people spoke loudly around their straws.
  • Bloomberg BNA (http://www.bna.com/news/#!topic=istax&type=isblogpost): California has adopted apportionment rules for space transport, a concept now blasting out of the gravitational well of government and headed into the vast unknown of private industry. In 2010, revenue from 23 commercial launches worldwide generated an estimated $2.45 billion. In 2015, estimated revenues generated from eight commercial space launches in the U.S. alone reached $617 million.

Bedfellows

  • Tax Girl (http://blogs.forbes.com/kellyphillipserb): Shutting the barn door after 143 million horses have fled: A look at the IRS suspending its short-term ID-validation contract with Equifax.
  • Federal Tax Crimes (http://federaltaxcrimes.blogspot.com/): The rise and fall and continuing fall of a Manhattan tax attorney nailed for tax evasion and tax obstruction.
  • Due Diligence (http://www.mahanyertl.com/mahanyertl/): In this week’s collection: “Visiting Nurse Service of New York Accused of Poor Patient Care, Fraud”; “Armet Armored Defrauded Army, Delivered Unsafe Armored Vehicles”; “Two Bros in Jail over Buy America / Defense Contractor Fraud Scheme”; and “Medicare Fraud Deep Dive: Billing by Non-physician Practitioners.”

Dancing

  • Avalara (https://www.avalara.com/blog/): If you have clients that are young software companies, you should know their sales tax triggers.
  • TaxBuzz (https://www.taxbuzz.com/blog): Cash flow problems kill more than four out of five businesses. How to help biz clients avoid this curse.
  • Intuit Proconnect (http://taxprocenter.proconnect.intuit.com/): Weary of the “dance” of placing the ad, conducting the rounds of interviews and applying the same standards you were taught to candidates? Can going virtual cure some of your staffing headaches?
  • H&R Block (http://blogs.hrblock.com/): What to tell your parent clients about FAFSA return requirements.
  • Sageworks (https://www.sageworks.com/blog/default.aspx): The importance of goals — and keeping them in strong sight — when exiting a business.
  • Boyum & Barenscheer (http://www.boybarcpa.com/blog): Our marvelous modern data blizzards can easily blind us to important facts and figures. Here are four ways to get and keep your business data in order.

Buffeted

  • Dinesen Tax Times (http://dinesentax.com/blog): Part Eight of the history of marriage in the Tax Code, specifically how Congress got around to updating a World War I-era stipulation that created inequality in tax liability between married couples living in common-law states and couples living in community property states. (Congress got around to it after World War II.)
  • Rubin on Tax (http://rubinontax.floridatax.com): Most practitioners are familiar with the 2848 Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative. What most practitioners may not realize is that just putting “1040” in the appropriate box does not open sesame for all attachments to that 1040.
  • Houston Tax Attorney (http://www.irstaxtrouble.com/category/tax-blog/): A further look at the above case, including how the IRS recently addressed this for the 5471.
  • Backtaxeshelp (http://www.backtaxeshelp.com/tax-blog/): You’d think most of the super-wealthy would favor eliminating the estate tax, and you’d be right. A look at the notable exception to that rule, probably our most famous rich guy.
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