In the blogs: Today’s specials

Unfairness in the Tax Code; implementing inclusion; the stimulus and 2021 returns; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Mind the gap

• Don’t Mess with Taxes (http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/): If you’ve thought the $441 million that the IRS has for years cited as the Tax Gap is too low, you are not alone. None other than the IRS commissioner agrees that there is more tax money that's owed than the agency has been able to collect. A whole lot more.
• Procedurally Taxing (https://procedurallytaxing.com): Wait, What?! Dept.: The “strange case” of taxpayers who tried to take about half-a-million dollars in nonsense deductions for their horse breeding/leasing business and the Tax Court disallowed them. “This, of course, resulted in a $0 deficiency after running Rule 155 computations.”
• Tax Foundation (https://taxfoundation.org/blog): Proponents of the 199A deduction claimed it would boost investment. Critics claimed it would encourage tax avoidance and income shifting. New research casts doubt on both claims.
• TaxProf Blog (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/): A look at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the Tax Code’s racial, ethnic and gender disparities. Among details: Policies that are more likely to provide tax breaks for white Americans than black, including tax breaks for marriage, for sales of homes and for employer provided retirement accounts.
• Eide Bailly (https://www.eidebailly.com/taxblog): Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas — chief architect of the 2017 tax reform bill — has announced that he won’t seek re-election in 2022 and will retire. That’s likely to set up a clash between Republicans for who replaces him on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.
• Avalara (https://www.avalara.com/us/en/blog.html): In Kansas, the governor has vetoed the threshold for out-of-state sellers and collection requirement for marketplace facilitators.
• Solutions For CPA Firm Leaders (http://ritakeller.com/blog/): Do you hit the snooze button too often regarding decisions?

Today’s specials

• Summing It Up (http://blog.freedmaxick.com/summing-it-up): The ARP established a program to provide $28.6 billion in funds as a part of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which aims to provide grants to restaurants and bars that have been hurt financially due to the pandemic with grants to help them mitigate the effects of lost revenue resulting from closures and capacity limits. A look at how the program will work.
• Tax Pro Center (https://proconnect.intuit.com/taxprocenter/): A look at the recent temporary exception to the 50-percent limit on the amount that businesses can deduct for food or beverages.
• Mauled Again (http://mauledagain.blogspot.com/): Possible ramifications after the Department of Labor fines a tax prep firm for prohibiting employees and customers from wearing face coverings in the workplace. Maybe there were good reasons, the blogger notes, but maybe the firm consciously failed to enforce the mandates like some restaurants fail to enforce employees washing their hands.

Appreciation

• AICPA (https://blog.aicpa.org/): Inclusion, as a concept often generally and enthusiastically accepted, can be more difficult to grasp and challenging to put in place. How to implement diversity and inclusion throughout your firm.
• Surgent Income Tax School (http://www.theincometaxschool.com/blog/): Why working from home as a tax preparer is “awesome.”
• Canopy (https://www.canopytax.com/blog): Top employee-appreciation tactics for the season and beyond.
• Sagenext (https://www.thesagenext.com/blog): The principles of what today is as indispensable to the profession as adding machines once were: network security hardware and software to protect data.

Stumbling blocks

• Taxjar (http://blog.taxjar.com/): What should a business client do if they discover they’ve actually had sales tax nexus in a jurisdiction for years?
• National Taxpayer Advocate (https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/taxnews-information/blogs-nta/): Despite the burden taxpayers face when they file paper tax returns, there is one group of individuals who generally cannot e-file: taxpayers who need to apply for a new ITIN.
• Taxbuzz (https://www.taxbuzz.com/blog): What to tell them about marginal versus effective rates.
• Boyum & Barenscheer (https://myboyum.com/blog/): Common stumbling blocks for nonprofits in keeping their tax-exempt status. Heading the list: the “hot buttons” of lobbying and campaign activities.
• Current Federal Tax Developments (https://www.currentfederaltaxdevelopments.com): How most costs recently incurred by a male couple seeking to have a child were determined to not be deductible medical expenses.
• Taxing Subjects (https://www.drakesoftware.com/blog): A look at the recent TAS warning of bans for misuse of credits.
• The Wandering Tax Pro (http://wanderingtaxpro.blogspot.com/): Looking ahead to 2021’s returns, remind them to make a note of the amount of the third stimulus payment they receive.