Most Recent Posts
What Mary L Trump Needed Was Forensic Accounting
In 2017, Mary was approached by the New York Times. She told them that she did not have any documentation, but they suggested that the attorney might. As it turned out there was a trove of documents, which she turned over to the Times.
According to her account, those documents would prove that her grandfather’s estate was worth a billion dollars.
Taking this at face value, the question is why were there not forensic accountants and independent appraisers going through those boxes before settlement? No offense to the Times, but they probably would have figured it out a lot quicker than a team of investigative reporters.
TIGTA – IRS Scores 98% On First Stimulus Payments
And then there are 40,656 individuals who already have their second stimulus payment, even though they were only supposed to get one. It appears that that was a sort of divorce bonus. People appeared as the secondary name on 2018 joint returns and then they filed their own return in 2019.
Paycheck Protection Shaming – Just Stop It
Originally published on Forbes.com. The SBA has released data on the Paycheck Protection Program. 5,461 lenders made 4,885,388 loans totaling $521,483,817,756. Tax Pro...
Preparers May Fight IRS On PPP Deduction Denial-Hundreds Of Billions At Stake
Originally published on Forbes.com. One of the most exciting features of the Paycheck Protection Program was that it appeared that borrowers were going to be getting...
Newly-Released IRS Data Book Shows Continued Downsizing of IRS and Taxpayer Audits
While hindsight is certainly 20/20, it has become harder to doubt that a short-staffed IRS has made handling the economic effects of this year’s pandemic all the more challenging. The U.S. government should perhaps consider an increased mobilization of staff to handle the complexities that will arise due to the various rule changes and concessions triggered by this year’s unprecedented events.
IRS Victory In Easement Case Prompts An Offer To Not Be Refused
The decision that I think likely triggered this notice, which I suspect was prepared some time before, was Plateau Holdings LLC (TC Memo 2020-93). As with many of the decisions Judge Lauber approved of the IRS disallowing on a technical error involving the terms of the easement. But in order to assess the penalty valuation has to be considered and that gets to the heart of the matter.
Why Stimulus For The Dead Might Not Have Been So Bad
Overall I think the IRS did a pretty good job particularly given that they went into this “war” with Vietnam War era software as you can see in this article by Tom Temin in Federal News Network earlier this year. Not to mention a huge headcount reduction in the aftermath of the interminable “scandal”.
GAO seems to be concerned about them chasing the erroneous stimulus payments, but given that many of them went to widows and orphans, I think that should be a low priority.
Bottom line is that when Congress wanted money shoveled out quickly IRS thought fast and made mistakes which in retrospect was absolutely the right thing to do.
IRS May Issue Millions Of Notices With Dates Wrong
I think the dumpster fires to get rid of the misdated notices will not be nearly as bad as those created by mailing them.
New August 31 Deadline To Return Required Minimum Distributions
There is not necessarily a right answer, but you want to consider what would be a tax rate that would cause you to want to liberate money from your IRA. This is not a computation you can do by just looking at the rate table. Reilly’s Sixth Law of Tax Planning – Don’t Do The Math In Your Head. The income tax is full of all sorts of thresholds and phaseouts that might affect your decision.
Round Up Of My Student Loan Coverage
I started covering student loans as part of my Occupy Wall Street coverage in 2011. The coverage was from a big picture policy viewpoint. I have now taken up a different approach. I am going to study student loans from my viewpoint as a tax planner. Frankly, I agree that the system is kind of screwed up, but so is the tax system, which accounts for Reilly’s First Law of Tax Planning – It is what it is. Deal with it.