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

+ Check out the January issue of LOIS.  

+ My tax tip this week at MAINSTREET.COM was “How to Prepare Your Tax Preparer”.  And then there was “How to Correct an Error on Your W-2”.

+ Go to the MISSOURI TAXGUY blog and look for my Robert F page at the “Store”.

+ The Tax Foundation has issued its “2012 State Business Tax Climate Index”, which presents the tax climate of each state as of July 1, 2011, the first day of the standard 2012 state fiscal year.

The 10 best states in this year’s Index are, from 1 to 10 – Wyoming, South Dakota, Nevada, Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Washington, Montana, Texas, and Utah.

The 10 worst states are, from 41 to 50 – Iowa, Maryland, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, California, New York, and New Jersey.

Once again, like Oliver Twist the Garden State is last on the list –

“New Jersey scores at the bottom by having the third-worst individual income tax, the fifth-worst sales tax, the 13th-worst corporate tax, and the second-worst property tax.”

+ Darren Mish has a two parter titled “Claim Tax Deductions from your Hobby” at his IRS PROBLEM SOLVER BLOG.  Click on Part 1 and Part 2.

+ The WASHINGTON POST tells us “Amid Calls for Tax Fairness, Government Report Shows Federal Workers Owe $3.4B in Back Taxes”.

“The data showed that 467 employees of the House of Representatives, or about 4.2 percent of the workforce, owed more than $8.5 million. In the Senate, 217 employees, or about 3 percent of the workforce, owed $2.13 million.

Obama’s staff was not immune, either, with 36 people in Obama’s executive office of nearly 1,800 workers — about 2 percent — owing the government $833,970 in back taxes.”

+ Trish McIntire celebrated “Earned Income Awareness Day” (12/27/12) with a discussion of the troublesome fraud magnet known as the Earned Income Tax Credit over at OUR TAXING TIMES.

Trish likes the EITC.  While I may support the basic concept behind the credit, I have written and spoken out against its inclusion in the Tax Code for years.  It is a refundable credit – and refundable credits = rampant fraud.

+ Kay Bell talks about the delays in sending out refunds for early birds in “Tax Refunds Delayed By Fraud Fine-Tuning” at DON’T MESS WITH TAXES.

This will probably be the last BUZZ until after the “tax season”.

TTFN