Tax Roundup, 6/28/2013: Not dead yet edition
Thought the IRS scandal was dead? IRS Inspector Firm on One-Sided Targeting; Small Number Faced Extra Scrutiny, While All Tea-Party Applications Were Reviewed (Wall Street Journal): Internal Revenue...
View ArticleIf you buy something from your own business, do you have to pay retail?
It’s very tempting for contractors to divert materials from their business to, say, build a new addition. The business deducts the cost of the materials, and the IRS helps to subsidize the bigger...
View ArticleTax Roundup, 7/2/2013: Apologies, newlyweds and civil wars!
Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olsen Kay Bell doesn’t much care for the Taxpayer Advocate’s “apology payment” proposal, where the IRS would pay $1,000 as a token of apology to taxpayers who had gotten the...
View ArticleTax Roundup, 11/18/13: Waterloo day! And Iowa’s new $54 individual credit.
The ISU Farm and Urban Tax School is in Waterloo, Iowa today for another sold-out session. Only Red Oak, Denison and Ames after this, so register now! Then I drive to Cedar Rapids to talk about the...
View ArticleTax Roundup, 12/10/2013: Penalize everyone edition! And one for me, one from...
IRS: shoot first, let the Tax Court sort it out later. One of the most annoying features of exams in recent years is the IRS habit of imposing penalties on almost every underpayment, regardless of...
View ArticleTax Roundup, 12/18/2013: Have you made your College Savings Iowa gift? And:...
Year-end is sneaking up on us. So it doesn’t catch us completely unawares, the Tax Update will provide a year-end idea each day through December 31. Today we pass on a reminder that Iowans can...
View ArticleTax Roundup, 4/3/14: Iowa Tax Burden ranks 29th. And: Koskinen doesn’t seem...
The Tax Foundation yesterday released its annual ranking of “State-Local Tax Burdens.” Iowa came in at 29th highest. The Tax Foundation explains: For each state, we compute this measure of tax burden...
View ArticleTax Roundup, 5/19/14: The Roth dilemma. And: risks in enlisting the...
Is it better to get a tax benefit now and pay taxes later on retirement income, or vice-versa? Bloomberg econobogger Megan McArdle ponders the question in To Roth, or Not to Roth: In theory, the...
View ArticleTax Roundup, 10/10/14: Tax Court: consolidated return, consolidated...
Accounting Today visitors, click here for the pile of clothes. Professional Services Corporation in consolidated return not subjected to flat rate tax. When a professional business – law, medicine,...
View ArticleTax Roundup, 10/21/14: Gander gets sauced! And: IRS Commissioner’s prophecy...
Flickr image by Sage under Creative Commons license Gander, Meet Sauce. An alert reader points out something wonderful I had missed — a ruling awarding attorney fees and costs of $257,885 to the return...
View ArticleTax Roundup, 9/28/15. IRS logic: A and B are part of set X. A is part of Set...
Flickr image by Sage under Creative Commons license On further review, it’s silly. I’ve had a weekend to think about last weeks IRS “Action on Decision” to continue trying to collect self-employment...
View ArticleTax Roundup, 5/24/16: Tax Court penalizes taxpayers for careless claims, but...
Flickr image by Sage under Creative Commons license Pass the gander sauce, please. When a taxpayer claims a deduction that gets disallowed, the IRS assesses a 20% “Accuracy-related penalty” almost as a...
View ArticleTax Roundup, 11/11/16: I’ll take your house, but the money is for sweeping...
The keys will be extra. It’s common to see a Tax Court decision where you wonder why they bothered to go to the trouble of litigating. It’s unusual when the puzzling litigant is the IRS. When the real...
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