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

* The final “issue” of THE TAX PROFESSIONAL – January – is finally up.  Tax pros, PLEASE check it out – and send me your comments on my editorials.

TTP will return in a different format after the end of the tax filing season.

* CCH has published a Tax Briefing on “2014 Tax Year-In-Review”.  Click here to download it.

* Just a reminder – if you are looking for a new or your first tax professional the place to start is FIND A TAX PROFESSIONAL.

* Jean Murray’s weekly email “newsletter” for business owners deals with “preparing and distributing W-2 forms to employees and 1099-MISC forms to non-employees”.  Click here to read her advice.

* Did you see this week’s BOB’S BABBLINGS yet?

* Russ Fox warns that we will need more patience than ever when dealing with the IRS this year in “Waiting for Godot” at TAXABLE TALK.

Russ tells us –

“If you’re going to call the IRS, expect very lengthy hold times; yesterday I was on hold for 101 minutes before speaking with an IRS representative. I expect the hold times to get far worse as we head into Tax Season.”

I never contact the IRS via telephone (to be honest I do not trust the person to whom I speak to tell me the truth, based on past experience) – so no problem for me.  And my written correspondence to the Service had taken 4 months or more to be resolved before the budget cuts – so I, and my clients, will just need to be more patient.

Of course this is all the fault of the idiots in Congress.  They continue to foist inappropriate jobs on the IRS by wrongly running government welfare and other programs through the Tax Code – the latest inappropriate job being to enforce Obamacare – and cut the budget at the same time.

* Jason Dinesen finished his series of posts on “5 Things You Didn’t Know About EAs” with "#5: EAs are the Only Pros Required to Take Tax CPE” –

“Of all of the preparers in the tax world, only Enrolled Agents are required to take continuing education in taxes.”

Jason points out that some CPAs may take CPE in taxation, “but they aren’t required to. A CPA could get all of their CPE hours in accounting or other topics.”

THE FINAL WORD-

While shopping in STAPLES earlier this week I came across a display for Turbo Tax software.  Prominent on the display was the statement “No Tax Knowledge Needed!”.

Pardon my French, but bullshit.  This is a totally false statement.  DO NOT BELIEVE IT!

With no tax knowledge you will definitely get garbage out from your garbage in.

No tax preparation software program is a substitute for knowledge of the Tax Code!  And no tax preparation software program is a substitute for a knowledgeable and experienced tax professional!  

TTFN