* I am working on
the content for the October issue of THE TAX PROFESSIONAL. Have you seen the September issue yet? Why not?
* Philip Bump tells
us “Americans Think 51 Percent of Every Tax Dollar is Wasted. Come On, Guys” at
the Washington Post’s THE FIX blog.
While Philip points
out examples of substantial federal government waste, he thinks that 51% is a
ridiculously high number.
I don’t know about
federal spending, but having lived in Hudson County NJ for most of my life I
don’t think the number is too high for local and state waste (at least in NJ).
* Jean Murray deals
with the frequently asked question “How Does a Sole Proprietor Get Paid?” at
ABOUT.COM.
* And Jean’s
ABOUT.COM colleague William Perez tackles “Taxable Refunds: Reporting Taxable Refunds on Form 1040”.
Bill points out –
“If you itemized your deductions on your
federal tax return last year and you claimed a deduction for State and Local
Taxes, then you need to figure the taxable portion of your state refund.”
And -
“However, if you claimed the standard
deduction on your federal tax return last year, your state tax refund is not
taxable. State refunds are also not taxable if you deducted state and local
sales tax instead of state income tax on last year's federal return.”
* Kay Bell tells us
about “Energy-Related Tax Holidays in Florida, Georgia & Virginia” at DON’T
MESS WITH TAXES.
It’s too late now
for Florida, but the Georgia and Virginia events are in October.
* Oi vey! A milestone.
Professor Paul Caron tells us that The IRS Scandal has reached “Day 500”
at the TAXPROF BLOG. Paul quotes from an
article on IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.
* Over at ROLL CALL
Matt Fuller reports “Boehner Lists Tax Reform Among House GOP’s Top Prioritiesfor 2015”.
The item quotes
Boehner as saying -
“Our tax code is terrible. Nobody understands it — not even the IRS.”
What we can gather
from this is that, as expected, absolutely nothing will be done regarding any
kind of “tax reform” in 2014. As for
2015 – don’t hold your breath.
It appears Boner
did not mention the “extenders” in the speech discussed in the item, as he was
addressing the goals of the next (114th) Congress.
* A post by Jim
Blankenship at GETTING YOUR FINANCIAL DUCKS IN A ROW from January explains “Why Watching the Stock Market Can Make You Sick”.
I have always said
that (unless you are a legitimate day trader) if you need to check the stock
market every day to see if it went up or down you should not be in the stock
market. I have a client who had
stock-market based annuities and used to check the market every day and moan about
losing money every time it went down a few points. Luckily she got out of annuities and I eventually
hooked her up with a good honest broker.
* Jeffrey Levine of
THE SLOTT REPORT, the go-to site for IRA information, advises “New Guidance Opens the Door to Tax-free Roth IRA Conversions of Certain Retirement Funds”.
The answer to the
question “If someone has a 401(k) with
pre and post-tax money, can they take a distribution and roll (convert) just
the post-tax money to a Roth IRA tax-free, while rolling the remaining pre-tax
money over to a traditional IRA?” is now YES.
* And, also at
SLOTT, Beverly DeVeny responds to the question “Multiple Retirement Accounts and RMDs: Can I Take the Required Distribution From One Account?”
The answer, no
surprise here, is “It depends”.
TTFN
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