WHERE DO I BEGIN?

My new computer is up and running – so I am back in business. 

I have missed wandering the “tax blog-o-sphere”.  There was a lot happening on the tax front during my absence. 

+ My buddy and fellow tax blogger, CPA Peter J Reilly, wrote about my Sept 11 post in his Sept 11 post at his Forbes.com blog PASSIVE ACTIVITIES titled “The Wandering Tax Pro’s 1/11Tribute”.

Thanks to Pete, and I gratefully accept the award –

“If there was an award for the most colorful tax blogger, I have little doubt that the trophy would go to Robert Flach – The Wandering Tax Pro.”  

Peter has posted on some interesting topics in the past few days, and I promise to read them carefully and provide my 2 cents on some of the issues.                                    

+ The weekly email newsletter from NATP provided the following two items of interest -

“Tax Treatment of Cell Phones Guidance

The IRS has issued Notice 2011-72 which provides guidance on the tax treatment of employer-provided cell phones as an excludible fringe benefit. The notice states when an employer provides an employee with a cell phone primarily for noncompensatory business reasons, the business and personal use of the cell phone are generally nontaxable to the employee. The IRS will not require recordkeeping of business use in order to receive this tax-free treatment. The IRS also issued a memorandum to its examiners on this subject. The memorandum also provides that business-use cell phone cash allowances and reimbursements by employers are nontaxable.

Tax Relief for Disaster Victims

Victims of wildfires in Texas counties Bastrop, Colorado, Houston, Leon, Travis and Williamson are eligible for tax relief since they have been declared a federal disaster area.

Victims of Tropical Storm Lee in New York counties Broome, Chenango, Delaware, Otsego and Tioga as well as victims in Pennsylvania counties Adams, Bradford, Columbia, Cumberland, Schuylkill, Snyder, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Union, Wyoming and York are eligible for tax relief since they have been declared a federal disaster area.

 
This means certain deadlines falling on or after August 30 and on or before October 31 have been postponed to October 31. This includes corporations and other businesses that previously obtained an extension until September 15 to file their 2010 returns, and individuals and businesses that received a similar extension until October 17. It also includes the estimated tax payment for the third quarter, normally due September 15.”

+ BO presented his proposed Jobs Act in a televised address to a joint session of Congress, which I briefly spoke about in “Obama'sProposed Tax Cuts Benefit Businesses, Consumers Alike” at Mainstreet.com. 

I will have more on the President’s proposal in a future post.

+ I am not the only one who thinks that MTV’s JERSEY SHORE reality show is a steaming piece of excrement.

In her TAX GIRL post “Here's theSituation: Call to Block ‘Jersey Shore’ Tax Credit” Kelly Phillips Erb tells us -

“Gov. Christie is now being called upon to block a $420,000 tax credit awarded to the production company of the show.”

Kelly quotes Andre’ DiMino, President of Italian American ONE VOICE Coalition –

”Public monies should never be used subsidize and promote violence, criminal behavior and ethnic stereotyping. This is disgraceful, and we are calling upon Governor Christie and all our legislators to immediately stop the tax credit for ‘Jersey Shore’.”

Right on, Andre!  Let us all join him in calling Chris and our “representatives” in Trenton (I use the quotes because in reality – no pun intended – they do not represent us, the voters; they represent themselves and their party bosses).

The above are just a few of the things that happened while I was without benefit of computer.  I will talk more about these items, and more, in the coming weeks.

 
TTFN