Most Recent Posts
Appomattox – April 2015 – Prequel
April 7 I started the day with that great road trip anticipation as I stumbled around the house making sure all my stuff was organized. I hit the road at...
Do Not Be Pressured Into Signing Last Minute Joint Return
Robin is a teacher, who receives a W-2 in January which is handed to Terry to be given to their accountant. Terry’s accountant really. Terry is a partner in a law firm and has a host of business interests making for a joint return that weighs several pounds. Once a year, Robin is summoned to sign – quickly, quickly, because we have to get it in the mail right away. Robin and Terry are splitting, but they were still married on December 31, 2014. Marital status for tax filing is determined as of the last day of the year.
Even in a pretty toxic marriage, each of the parties will have had some of their needs met. One of Robin’s needs that has been met in the marriage with Terry was worrying at all about tax compliance. As the marriage comes apart, there is a temptation to continue having some of those needs met even as you live apart. This can extend even to those needs as this article by Kristen Houghton title “Is Sex With Your Ex the New From of Monogamy?” indicates. Whatever the pros and cons of a post-marital roll in the hay might be, beginning with that last return of the marriage, Robin probably needs to take responsibility for tax compliance.
Appomattox – April 12, 2015 – Auld Lang Syne
Appomattox Court House National Historical Park - April 12, 2015 The final day of my Virginia trip, my last Civil War real time experience (The Grand Review Parade in...
Appomattox – April 11th – Freedom
The best anecdote about the Civil War I ever heard was one that I heard in Dublin. On our biggest vacation week ever, we went to the one Unitarian Church in Dublin, one...
Kent Hovind Trials – Final Round Of The First Fight – Installment Three
Jonathan Schwartz continues his coverage of the final day of the Kent Hovind trial in March. Episode Number Three Sticking to the facts: The Kent Hovind Fraud and...
Hovindication Finds Its Opposite If Not Equal Reaction
One of the implications of Young Earth Creationism, the notion that there is scientific support for a hyper literal reading of the Book of Genesis, is that human...
Kent Hovind Trials – Final Round Of The First Fight – Installment Two
Jonathan Schwartz continues his analysis of the final day of the Kent Hovind trial. Judge Rodgers reviews the charges as she gives her instructions to the Jury Just the...
Blessed Are The Peacemakers – Appomattox Sesquicentenniial
Yesterday, although not technically the sesquicentennial of the last day of the Civil War, is recognized as such in popular imagination and not without reason....
Tax Court Allows Multimillion Multiyear Arabian Horse Losses
If you told that story to some CPAs who had been in the business a long time, you would get two different reactions. One would be a kind of “There but for the grace of God, go I” and another would be “Well that would never happen with a transaction that my firm was involved with. We have procedures and policies to avoid that type of thing”. The latter group is divided into two classes – people who are deluding themselves and liars. The humility of the “grace of God” crowd actually makes it less likely that they’ll screw up that way because they will have a couple of paranoid partners who worry about stuff like that happening.
At any rate, the Metzes “reliance on professional” defense did not work, since they should have noticed that a gain of $2 million or so had slipped through the cracks and they were hit with the accuracy penalty. Have to wonder whether that will end up coming out of somebody’s malpractice coverage
Appomattox Gearing Up For Surrender
150 years ago yesterday, the prospects of the Army of Northern Virginia got even dimmer. Its second to last battle was fought in the evening as cavalry under the...