WHAT’S THE BUZZ? TELL ME WHAT’S A HAPPENNIN’

* Stacie Clifford Kitts, CPA of STACIE’S MORE TAX TIPS girds for battle with June Walker. In her post “A Tax Blog Throw Down - I Dished it Out - Now it Looks Like I Will Have to Take It” she says, “it appears that I am soon to be the target of Ms. Walker’s rants as I might have been a bit harsh in my comments to her retaliation post.”
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Why did she “retaliate”? “I believe some of her {June Walker’s} comments were snide, belittling, unprofessional, and unnecessary.”
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We are all awaiting JW’s next entry in the saga to see for which of the multitude of tax pros who commented on her “offending” post she rips new ones.
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* Kay Bell tells us that Chuck Rangel, Chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, is in trouble again in her post “Ways & Means Chair In Trouble ... Again” at DON’T MESS WITH TAXES.
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Bill also discusses Chuck in “Some People Never Change” at the APRIL 15.COM blog.
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* Kay Bell, a member of the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP), also reports on what was discussed at the recent TAP meeting she attended on the topic of registering tax preparers in the post “More Tax Preparer Oversight Questions”.
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According to Kay, “My general assessment of the TAP conversation with the IRS rep regarding the tax preparer regs is that the agency truly is open, at least right now, to all ideas on this topic”.
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* Joe Kristan tells us about “Another Fail for the TurboTax Defense” at the ROTH AND COMPANY TAX UPDATE BLOG. I do believe that this is the third time the Tax Court has said that blaming tax preparation software for tax return FUs is not a valid defense. You sign the return - you are responsible!
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The Moral, as Joe points out, is - “The ‘Garbage-in, Garbage-Out’ Doctrine trumps the TurboTax Defense”.
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Joe also points out that the Turbo Tax Defense is only successful with Presidential appointees.
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* Joe also provides a quote that describes New Jersey politicians to a tee in “This Explains a Lot of the Tax Law”.
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Some key phrases from the quote –
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“extraordinarily fixated on power and status and extraordinarily motivated to keep it” and
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“exceptionally prone politicians are to narcissism, motivated cognition, self-deception, and brazen lying.”
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* Monica Lawver wants to know “Where Do I Sign Up?” to get involved in pushing Congress for tax simplification.
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As I point out in my comment, “There is really no effective lobby for the individual taxpayer. Until there is, all the other lobbies for special interest groups, with their huge budgets, will continue to entice Congress to complicate the Tax Code in their favor.”
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Monica, I will be glad to work with you on a “Tax Professionals for Simplification” organization.
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* TAX GIRL Kelly Phillips Erb tells us - “Laura Schultz was expecting to hear from the IRS. After all, the Denver-area house cleaner owed the IRS about $80. But when she opened up a letter from the IRS, it wasn’t quite was she was expecting: a refund check for $122,783.51.” As her post title puts it, “Now THAT’S A Refund!”.
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Kay Bell also discusses the story in “IRS Issues $122,783.51 Erroneous Refund”.
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* NJ is number 1 - again! Paul Caron, the TAX PROF, gives us a list of “the proportion of taxpayers paying AMT in each state in 2007” in “AMT By State, 2007”.

Paul points out that (highlight is mine), “In two-thirds of the states, less than 3.5% of taxpayers were subject to the AMT, but in New Jersey 8.7% of taxpayers paid AMT, and 7.7% owed AMT in neighboring New York. More than 6.5% of taxpayers in California, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia were subject to the AMT.”
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* Here’s another reason not to use Facebook or MySpace. While it seems that just about every tax blog had a post on this topic in the last few days, the post “Are Tax Collectors Your Friends?” at the TAX CONTROVERSY UPDATE blog by Townsend and Jones LLP first led me to the Wall Street Journal article “Is 'Friending' in Your Future? Better Pay Your Taxes First”.
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According to the article –
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“Tax deadbeats are finding someone actually reads their MySpace and Facebook postings: the taxman.
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State revenue agents have begun nabbing scofflaws by mining information posted on social-networking Web sites, from relocation announcements to professional profiles to financial boasts.
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In Minnesota, authorities were able to levy back taxes on the wages of a long-sought tax evader after he announced on MySpace that he would be returning to his home town to work as a real-estate broker and gave his employer's name. The state collected several thousand dollars, the full amount due.
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Meanwhile, agents in Nebraska collected $2,000 from a deejay after he advertised on his MySpace page that he would be working at a big public party.”
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* The IRS has issued a draft copy of the 2009 Form 8863 (Education Credits). The form has been revised to include the new American Opportunity Credit. There is also now a Page 2 to calculate the refundable AOC and the amount of nonrefundable education credits.
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*Trish McIntire takes on “some marketing lines many preparers (including myself) use” in her post “Buyer Education 1”, the first entry “in a small taxpayer education series” at OUR TAXING TIMES.
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In this entry - “The issue isn't the actual talking point but either making it a stand alone criteria or not understanding the spin involved”.
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* And last, but certainly not least, Russ Fox discusses language in the new ObamaCare legislation “that may make you just a bit uneasy” in his post “Don't Worry, We're From the Government” at TAXABLE TALK.

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I do admit to a feeling of uneasiness.
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TTFN