WHAT’S THE BUZZ, TELL ME WHAT’S A HAPPENNIN’ - TUESDAY EDITION

* Barbara Weltman explains the “Hobby Lobby Case and Your Small Business” at BARBARA’S BLOG.

On June 30, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that requiring family-owned corporations (like Hobby Lobby, Inc) to pay for insurance coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care Act violated a federal law protecting religious freedom.

“The Court said that a closely-held corporation (the legal entity of the litigants Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp.), is a person for purposes of the RFRA {the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 – rdf}, thus protecting, at least on this contraception issue, the religious liberty of the humans who own and control it.”

To me this is totally ridiculous.  Individuals – persons like you and me – have religious freedom, not business entities.  If an individual employee, or shareholder, of Hobby Lobby opposes contraception on religious grounds then that individual should not use contraceptives.  But if a shareholder, or all shareholders, of a corporation opposes contraception on religious grounds he/she/they cannot force their individual religious beliefs on, and deny otherwise required legal medical coverage to, the employees of the corporation who may not share the same religious beliefs.  It is the individual employee, or shareholder, who has religious freedom, not the business.

In this situation religious freedom means that the government cannot force a person to take contraceptives if their religion tells them doing so is wrong. 

* Roger Wohlner, THE CHICAGO FINANCIAL PLANNER, discusses “Required Minimum Distributions – 7 Things You Need to Know”.

* Jason Dinesen wonders “Why is the AICPA Filing a Lawsuit Against Lame IRS Preparer Program?” at DINESEN TAX TIMES.

Jason does a good job of concisely describing the IRS’ new voluntary nonsense (highlight is mine) -

“My understanding of the program is that if a preparer sits through 18 hours of continuing education and passes some sort of test administered by a CPE provider, they get a gold star and an ‘attaboy’ from the IRS.”

* Jason also deals with “Deducting Losses in Retirement Accounts” in an earlier post.

* Prof Jim Maule debunks on with a new entry in his “Tax Myths” series.  This myth is “Part XI: Alimony Always Is Taxable”.

The Prof explains examples of when alimony is not taxable.

If I may add another example – when what is called “alimony” is actually disguised “child support”.  I came across this once in my 40+ years.  Perhaps I will write TWTP post on the subject in the near future.

THE LAST WORD

I really miss true variety television.  Thank God for reruns of LAWRENCE WELK on PBS.

With over 200 channels, and too often nothing on but garbage, you would think at least one of them would rerun episodes of the dozens of classic variety shows of the 60s and 70s.

TTFN