In the blogs: Trust no one

Lots of letters; sales tax and crumbling streets; a different look at due diligence; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Trust no one

• Boyum & Barenscheer (https://www.myboyum.com/blog/): Roth conversions attract a lot of conversation in the personal tax and wealth management realm. Why this ballyhooed move is a case-by-case, year-by-year decision for clients.
• Armanino (https://www.armanino.com/articles/): The Corporate Transparency Act's beneficial ownership rules loom big over scads of small companies. Who will have to do what, and when?
• Tax Pro Center (https://proconnect.intuit.com/taxprocenter/): What to remind them of the seemingly endless Employee Retention Credit scams, including the popular lines and lures.
• Current Federal Tax Developments (https://www.currentfederaltaxdevelopments.com/): Credit unions that meet the necessary criteria can claim the ERC for wages paid in 2021 but are ineligible for such claims for wages paid in 2020.
• National Taxpayer Advocate (https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/taxnews-information/blogs-nta/): Taxpayer help when trying to figure out the Earned Income Tax Credit — and stand up under a later audit — continues to be a challenge, especially considering clients sometimes use unenrolled agents who can't represent them before the IRS.
• The Tax Times (https://www.thetaxtimes.com): According to the IRS, attorneys, accountants and others are mistakenly claiming that a certain type of trust structure will not get hit with a tax on any earned income, including capital gains, and are misinterpreting regulations governing the income earned by trusts.
• National Association of Tax Professionals (https://blog.natptax.com/): What happens to your practice and clients when you die?

Keys to success

• HBK (https://hbkcpa.com/insights/): Communication, lines of credit, ample backups: Banking lessons for the construction sector can apply across many clients' industries.
• Solutions For CPA Firm Leaders (https://ritakeller.com/wordpress/): Rarely does the blogger now encounter a firm that's returned to all-office worker attendance. A look at the benefits for these firms of such new-fangled arrangements.
• Taxjar (https://www.taxjar.com/resources/blog): September sales tax due dates.
• Canopy (https://www.canopytax.com/blog): How five keys to success for a firm included an onboarding specialist and tearing up the vision board when circumstances dramatically changed.
• Turbotax (https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com): One thousand and ninety-nine good reasons to tell clients about the latest tax-wise on their getting paid via payment platforms.
• Withum (https://www.withum.com/resources/): When it comes to portfolio advising, no stock should be off limits for selling.

The places we'll go

• Mauled Again (http://mauledagain.blogspot.com/): How a wayward proposal to pay for repaving crumbling streets in St. Paul, Minnesota, by raising the city's sales tax could use a good dose of WAZE.
• Tax Foundation (https://taxfoundation.org/blog):  The United Nations is preparing to flex its muscles on international tax policy. Several developing countries say the OECD's approach favors richer countries at their expense; the UN hopes to fix this.
• Vertex (https://www.vertexinc.com/resources/resource-library/filter/field_asset_type/blog?page=0): What to remind clients who sell internationally about other nations' especially tricky taxes and tax policies, including e-invoicing.

Perspectives

• Marcum (https://www.marcumllp.com/insights): In light of the recent Sinopoli v. IRS Commissioner in the U.S. Tax Court, the application and interpretation of the Master's rule has come under the spotlight. (The rule allows homeowners to exclude income from federal tax for properties rented out for 14 days or less in a tax year.) The verdict, in favor of the IRS, sheds new light on the intricacies and potential pitfalls of the rule, especially in the age of Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms.
• TaxProf Blog (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/): Fav headline of the week, with a nod to Ben Franklin: "Tax Protesting — A Hobby That Eats." ("That is why I call tax protestors 'hobbyists,' " the author writes. "They simply advance stupid reasons for not paying taxes, to the point where their hobby consumes them and others, at great cost.")
• University of Illinois Tax School (https://taxschool.illinois.edu/blog/): A look at one school's federal tax workbook topics. Amazing what a different perspective can tell you about the pace of change in the industry.
• Taxing Subjects (https://www.drakesoftware.com/blog): What They're Really Thinking Dept.: Tax preparer due diligence — from the perspective of the tax preparer.