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Most Recent Posts

Bank Cannot Issue 1099-C And Subsequently Try To Collect

Bank Cannot Issue 1099-C And Subsequently Try To Collect

If this ruling stands, financial institutions will be encouraged to delay having an identifiable event as long as there is the dimmest hope that something might be collected.  1099-C when finally issued will be a blast from the past to the recipient, who if they are diligent will probably be able to come up with an argument that the debt expired in a much earlier year.

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Hipster Tax Has Historical Precedent

Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse.

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IRS And 501(c)(4) Damned If They Do Damned If They Don’t

IRS And 501(c)(4) Damned If They Do Damned If They Don’t

We have seen how much trouble the IRS has had just with applications for exemption.  To really enforce the law, they will have to audit organizations like American Action Network to determine if maybe some of that media placement actually had something to do with campaigns.  The process would end up being like smoothing the air bubbles when hanging wall paper.  A tainted 501(c)(4) would shut down and a new one will pop up.  Apparently these things don’t require much infrastructure.  According to the 990, less than 2% of AAN’s expense are for management and fundraising.  That would be outstanding, if it were a charity.

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Doctor Dino Denting Deficit ?

Doctor Dino Denting Deficit ?

I tend to think that the ways in which people are screwed up is related to us evolving over a million years to live in small hunter gather bands and our genomes have not had time to catch up with agriculture and civilization in general.  Frankly, though, original sin probably works as well to account for how we are and is simpler to understand.

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Leisure Suit Larry Shows Up In Tax Court Decision

Leisure Suit Larry Shows Up In Tax Court Decision

I can imagine one of them telling me the story “You wouldn’t believe it, Pete.  This guy comes in and he tells me that he is going to make a video game.”  I reply that that is getting to be a big business now.  I know this because my buddy Mikey and I always go to the Dream Machine and drop quarters into Spy Hunter on our dinner breaks during tax season.
“I know, I know, but listen to what the game is about.  It’s about a forty-year-old guy going to discos and not getting laid.”  I agree that it seems kind of stupid.  Too much like real life.  “It gets even better, though. He thinks that in the long run, he’ll be making training simulators for the FBI and groups like that.”  Now that is really crazy.  Lots of guys in the FBI come from Jesuit Colleges.  They learned how not to get laid in Catholic grammar school, they don’t need a computer program for that.  “No. No.  The FBI stuff is from a submarine game.”  The FBI has submarines? “Anyway, I told the guy we were kind of busy and probably couldn’t help him”.
Accountants actually do provide value to entrepreneurs, but many of us are lacking in “the vision thing”.  It is not reasonable to chide someone who has succeeded in improbable ventures for not asking “experts” whether a business scheme is feasible or not.

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Billy Sol Estes – Better To Owe It To You Than Cheat You Out Of It

Billy Sol Estes – Better To Owe It To You Than Cheat You Out Of It

  If I sell you the Brooklyn Bridge that creates immediate income.  If I can convince you to loan me money using my interest in the Brooklyn Bridge as security and the transaction is recognized as a loan, that is not immediate income.  Someday, I may have to pay the piper if I finally stiff you, but there are ways around discharge of indebtedness income, like bankruptcy, for example.  That is why it is better to owe it to you, than cheat you out of it.

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Let The IRS Stick To Collecting Taxes

Let The IRS Stick To Collecting Taxes

  If we are going to have deductible charitable contributions then we need the IRS to be looking at some charities, but organizations end up applying for exempt status for a large variety of reasons that have nothing to do with taxation.  501(c) status creates an unjustified patina of respectability in some circles and, in some states, will allow privileges such as running gambling operations.  Some people seem to think that 501(c)(4) status can hide the fact that you grass-roots populist movement is backed by billionaires.  What these extraneous matters have in common is little or no connection to the IRS mission:

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Doctor Joyce Brothers Cameo In Tax Court And Women’s History

Doctor Joyce Brothers Cameo In Tax Court And Women’s History

When I was a kid, I was confused about Doctor Joyce Brothers.  I thought there were two brothers whose last name was Joyce and that they were both doctors.  Like those brothers named Halls who had beards and made cough drops.  They must have been doctors.  (I know that’s not accurate either.  Give me a break.  I was 10.) 

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Electing To Capitalize Expenses Can Pay Off On Sale

Electing To Capitalize Expenses Can Pay Off On Sale

What is extraordinary is that’s the whole section.  No sub-sections, paragraphs, sub-paragraphs.  A single sentence.  It has been handed down to us virtually unchanged from the 1954 Code, except that in 1977 they cut three words.  We should get that team working on the rest of the Code.

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