Most Recent Posts
Hovind Family Drama – Real Creationists Of Escambia County
Hovindology is a terrible thing for a busy tax blogger to fall into. I have been following the drama of Young Earth Creationist Kent Hovind since the fall of 2012 when...
Left Face – 1970 – The Xavier Class Lamented By Antonin Scalia – Part VI
"Education in Jesuit schools seeks to transform how youth look at themselves and other human beings, at social systems and societal structures, at the global community...
Clinton, Sanders Somewhat Confusing Vigorous Agreement On Social Security Cap
The social security cap, along with the way “Medicare for all” is financed, is one of the biggest differences between the tax plans released by Clinton and Sanders. Although both plans reduce the after tax income of those making over $730,000 (Sanders much more dramatically), the Clinton plan barely touches what I call “the other 4%” ($140,000 to $730,000), the Sanders plan reduces their after tax income by over 10%.
Much of that difference comes from the Sanders plan fooling with the income cap on social security tax. Social security tax still gets turned off at $118,500 under the Sanders plan, but it gets switched back on at $250,000. That change would have cost the Clintons over $2 million on their 2014 returns and the Sanders, well, zero. The challenge in the debate was to Clinton as to whether she would support the cap change in order to shore up social security.
Friedman LLP Survey Of Business Leaders On Tax Issues Has Surprising Results
Just over half of the respondents with international transactions found the international tax environment at least somewhat overwhelming. On a perhaps encouraging note, 65% of the business leaders indicated that they would not move their intangible property and logistical functions outside the United States even if it meant achieving a tax rate as low as 10%. The folks at Friedman seem to think that they are missing out.
Being Gay In The Sixties In Antonin Scalia’s High School
Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their...
TheDirty.com Editor Nik Richie Loses In Tax Court
If you are as evil-minded as I am it might occur to you that a General Partner might stick it to you by “specially allocating” income to you while making it clear, off the record, that there will never be any distributions. If you have a good reason for disagreeing with a K-1, one form of recourse is to file Form 8082 and report what you think is right. Unless you do that not following the K-1 is close to per se negligence.
Panama Papers – Much Foreign Ownership Is Innocent
Form 5471 requires a lot of information about the foreign corporation. In my experience, the challenging part for American accountants is getting the information. Much gets lost in translation. Sometimes it is difficult to determine what kind of an entity it is that your client owns. Sometimes the people overseas controlling the books and records are less than cooperative.
If you are getting involved in overseas transactions of any sort, try to get your advisors on both sides of the border to coordinate things. This is one area where the national accounting firms really shine, but you may find that they are too expensive if you are involved in relatively modest transactions.
Freedom From Religion Foundation Attacking Clergy Housing Tax Benefit Again
In 2002 the IRS and mega church pastor Rick Warren were dueling about the fine points of the allowance. The Ninth Circuit decided that there was a question about the statute’s constitutionality and had Erwin Chemerinsky acting as amicus curiae, but arguably more like advocatus diabloli, start briefing the argument that the exclusion was unconstitutional, something not raised by either side in the case. Congress acted with alacrity to amend the statute to make the dispute moot and that was the end of that.
Is Block Advisors A Threat To CPAs?
If Block Advisors has a good research platform and good preparation software, equivalent to what you might get from Thompson Reuters or Wolters Kluwer and their brand could draw in the business, they could probably hire away a lot of frustrated people who have gotten as far as they are ever going to get in accounting firms, because they didn’t realize when they went to Bentley and majored in accounting that selling skills would be really important if they wanted to get to the top. Block is a public company so maybe there could be stock options and the like or maybe just reasonable hours. If in an appropriate manner, they focused their recruiting on the 60% of CPAs who are women, who probably do 80% of the actual work, they might build a great team fast.
We Didn’t Start The Fire – 1970-The Xavier Class Lamented By Antonin Scalia – Part IV
My memoir of the final days of Xavier High School as, in the words of Antonin Scalia, "a thoroughly military academy" has expanded a bit thanks to one of my classmates...