I
take exception to the above comic strip that I came across in Saturday’s paper!
Due
to the holiday week-end today’s BUZZ is lean.
*
And the beat goes on. Jason Dinesen
bring us the latest on the ridiculous new regulations for EROs “IRS Clarifies New E-file Rules” -
“This IRS this afternoon confirmed to me and
other practitioners who had been making the IRS’s lives miserable the last few
days that: the new e-file rules apply only to electronically signed e-file
authorizations. And ‘electronically signed’ means signed by some means other
than pen-to-paper.
So for most prepares, included me,
the new rules don’t apply because most of us aren’t using electronic signatures.”
Regardless
of who or why – requiring tax preparers to do background and credit checks on
clients remains utterly ridiculous, and, as Jason has previously pointed out,
probably illegal and harmful to the clients being checked. EROs should join together and write to the
IRS en masse stating that they refuse to comply with this new regulation.
* THE SLOTT REPORT
underscores “The Importance of Taking RMDs on Time with Taxes, Penalties Looming”.
* ACCOUNTING TODAY
tells us that the IRS Oversight Board joins the growing list of those
(including me and NTA Nina Olsen) who opposing using outside collection
agencies to collect alleged outstanding tax delinquencies in “IRS Oversight Board Opposes Private Debt Collectors” (highlight is mine) -
“’The concept has already failed twice,’ said
IRS Oversight Board chairman Paul Cherecwich, Jr., in a letter Tuesday to the
leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.
‘When direct administrative costs are included, which the Joint Committee on
Taxation failed to do, the program costs
more to administer than the revenue retained. We concur with the NTA in
that outsourcing federal debt collection is a bad idea and it makes little
sense to resurrect.’”
* I recently
noticed the below statement on the home page of the NJ Division of Taxation -
“Taxpayers that made a final payment with
their 2013 New Jersey Tax Return may have received a notice of underpayment
from the Division of Taxation. We are correcting all of the accounts and will
process refunds expeditiously to those who may have overpaid. If you would like to confirm your account
balance, please contact us at 609-292-6400.”
The statement
addresses the perennial problem (happens every few years) of applying current
year manual balance due payments to the prior year’s tax account. It looks like (I assume from the wording of
the statement) this time NJDOT will automatically refund the overpayment –
instead of keeping mum and hoping that the affected taxpayers do not discover
the FU as had been the policy. In the
past I had to separately request a refund for each affected client.
This is a good
sign. But the NJDOT needs to go further
and send a letter explaining and apologizing for the FU to each taxpayer who
received an erroneous billing notice – for this FU and the other FUs that have
recently been discovered.
* FORBES.COM’s
TaxGirl Kelly Phillips Erb deals with a timely topic in “12 Tax Tips To Consider When Buying A Shore Or Vacation Property This Summer”.
TTFN
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