* Just call me "Rambing Rob". Please check out my RAMBLINGS. And share with friends, family, and co-workers. Here's an idea - why not subscribe to the posts. Thanks!
* Let me begin with an excerpt of a recent
post from a state-specific tax professional FACEBOOK group to which I belong
(highlight is mine) –
“Client
got a CP-2000 and quickly agreed and paid the amount asked for. Then they
showed me the notice. Turns out the IRS
added the same item twice, so the amount due is about half.”
I share this with you as a reminder to never assume a balance due notice from the
IRS or a state tax agency is correct and just pay it! In my experience 2/3 – 3/4 of all notices
are at least partially incorrect. If you receive a notice from the IRS or a
state agency give it to your, or a, tax professional immediately!
* A “Special Edition Tax Tip” from the IRS –
“IRS Offers Tips to Help You Prepare for Hurricanes, Natural Disasters”.
* A pop culture milestone - the SURLY
SUBGROUP announces “the Beatles’ hit song
Taxman has just turned 50” in “Taxman at 50”.
This is a new, to me, tax blog by tax
academics who teach at law schools around the country that I discovered via Joe
Kristan’s weekday daily BUZZ-like “Tax Round-up”.
* A request from Jim Blankenship at GETTING
YOUR FINANCIAL DUCKS IN A ROW – “If your hobby makes money, read this”.
“If
you have a hobby that makes money, you may need to claim this money as income,
net of your expenses, on your tax return.”
The post is actually a reprint of an IRS
“Summertime Tax Tip” – but does include important information for hobbyists.
* Kay Bell is correct when she says “Tax holidays mean use taxes for out-of-state shoppers” at DON’T MESS WITH TAXES.
However, between you and me, I expect that
only a very small handful of shoppers, if any, are actually paying state use
tax.
* And at Kay’s BANKRATE.COM blog we find “Tax phishing scam mimics software providers”.
Once again I am glad I do not use flawed
and expensive tax preparation software to prepare client 1040s.
MY AUGUST SPECIAL OFFER-
I have created a new monthly newsletter
titled BOBSERVATIONS with
my observations on "life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness".
The cost of this new monthly newsletter
is normally $9.95 for 12 monthly issues delivered as a pdf email
attachment. For all orders postmarked in
August 2016 you the cost is only $6.65 – 1/3 off!
Plus I will send you as a free gift my
e-book WON'T YOU TAKE THIS ADVICE I HAND YOU LIKE A BROTHER - a compilation of
my best tax advice from 45 years of preparing 1040s that currently sells for
$7.95.
Send your check or money order for
$6.65 payable to Robert D Flach, and your email address, to –
BOBSERVATIONS, ROBERT D FLACH, PO BOX
A, HAWLEY PA 18428
*
The CCH week-day daily Headline News reports “Wyden Touts Tax Proposals for Housing” -
“Sen.
Ron Wyden, D-Ore., ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee (SFC),
continues to promote his renewed first-time homebuyer tax credit while Congress
is in recess. The First-Time Homebuyer Credit Bill of 2016 (Sen 3175) would
allow qualified first time homebuyers to receive up to a $10,000 refundable tax
credit.”
This
legislation must never pass. Refundable tax
credits are fraud magnets.
Back in 2010 CNN Money quoted a Treasury
Department report finding that “more than
1,200 prison inmates, including 241 serving life sentences, defrauded the
government of $9.1 million in tax credits reserved for first-time homebuyers”.
In 2011 the Washington Reporter announced “more than 100 employees of the Internal
Revenue Service cheated the government by fraudulently claiming a first-time
homebuyer tax credit included in the 2008 and 2009 economic stimulus packages,
according to federal investigators”.
And it was not successful. An article in the John Marshall Law Review by
SJ Webber from 2011 suggests that the credit failed to deliver on its promises.
If you want to provide money to encourage
individuals to purchase a home then offer a direct federal point-of-purchase
subsidy payment.
Read
my lips – NO REFUNDABLE TAX CREDITS!
* Lew Taishoff of the TAISHOFF LAW BLOG
reminds us of what I have been telling my self-employed artist clients for
years in “An Artist’s Stock In Trade”.
The word, as Lew properly explains, is (highlight
is mine) “an artist who contributes her
own works to a charity, and can substantiate the contribution sufficiently for
Section 170 and Reg. 1.170A-13(b)(1), is
limited to a deduction not for the retail or fair market value of the
contributed artwork, but only for what
would amount to cost of goods sold”.
The artist can only deduct the actual cost
of the item donated, and not what he or she could sell it for.
Lew’s post discusses a recent court case
and ends with the following good advice that applies to all taxpayers and not
just artists –
“Takeaway
for artists- Save the receipts for any materials you use. Could be very handy.”
* A "Constipation, Mr Holmes" moment at the Tax Policy Center’s TAXVOX blog, where Roberton
C. Williams reminds us of the obvious – “Federal Taxes Are Very Progressive” –
and provides some recent statistics –
“Updated
estimates from the Tax Policy Center project that effective federal tax rates
this year will range from 3.5 percent for households in the lowest-income
quintile (or fifth) to 33.0 percent for those in the top 1 percent.
The
effective federal tax rate for all households—including individual and
corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes, and estate and gift
taxes—will average 19.9 percent in 2016. Individual income taxes will account
for half of total revenue (9.9 percent of income) and payroll taxes will
provide just over a third (6.9 percent of income). Most of the rest will come
from corporate income taxes (2.1 percent of income) with just 5 percent coming
from excise and estate and gift taxes (a combined 1 percent of income).”
I have continually supported a more flat
tax rate over a highly progressive tax system.
Entrepreneurship, success, and ambition should not be punished. The “wealthy” should not be more highly taxed
merely because they can afford it.
* And from the Tax Foundation’s TAX POLICY
BLOG, in a take on a previous entry in the series, the Foundation’s newest map shows
“The Real Value of $100 in Metropolitan Areas”.
The post identifies the ten most expensive
cities in the United States. Not
surprising #3 on the list includes my former home - $100 in the “New
York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA” metropolitan area is worth only $81.77. Still more proof that moving to northeast PA
was a good idea.
* FYI - IRS Summertime Tax Tip 2016-17
helps you to “Find Easy-to-Use Online Tools on IRS.gov”.
* Let me end with Bill and Hillary Clinton’s
2015 federal income tax return (click here).
The return shows that the couple had an AGI of about $10,600,000 and
donated $1,042,000 – 9.8% of AGI - to charity.
They paid about $3,323,000 in combined federal income tax and Obamacare
surtaxes – 31.4% of AGI – and $301,700 in self-employment tax.
Of course, Dangerous Donald’s return still
remains a mystery, and I expect will never be released.
THE FINAL WORD
I realize it looks like I am obsessing on
Dangerous Donald. But I just can’t turn
my head and pretend I just don’t see. I
truly believe, for the future safety of America and the world, that this
message needs to be constantly repeated until it is finally understood.
I will say it again - regardless of your
political beliefs, it is vitally important that Trump NEVER become President!
The reason is not his alleged political
policies. The problem is truly with the
man and not with his politics (however unacceptable his politics may be).
Donald Trump suffers acutely from
“Narcissistic Personality Disorder”.
Because of this he is incapable of acting or speaking intelligently,
maturely, truthfully, and rationally.
And, part of his disorder, he is incapable of dealing with criticism and
challenges like a mature adult.
Even if Hillary is as bad as her worst
critics make her out to be (which I personally do not believe), a President
Clinton is a hundred times better, and safer, for the country, and the world,
than a President Trump.
Before I go – kudos for another Republican
with a conscience and balls. Click
here. We need more Republican
Congresspersons and candidates to follow!
TTFN
Do you
want to learn how to pay the absolute least amount of federal and state income
tax possible – and experience the joy of avoiding taxes? Click here to check out my
library of tax planning and preparation books, guides, reports, and
newsletters.
No comments:
Post a Comment