NEVER FORGET!

 

 Police Officer Maurice Barry - PATH Emergency Service Unit - P.O. Shield #1038

A Port Authority officer for 16 years, Maurice "Moe" Barry, 48, was assigned to the PATH commuter train system. The resident of Rutherford, NJ, upon hearing the reports of the terrorist attacks, was one of the first on scene when he rushed from Jersey City to Lower Manhattan and then into the North Tower to help in the rescue efforts. As thousands fled the searing flames and smoke of the Towers, Officer Barry was attempting to reach trapped and frightened workers on the upper floors. The last time he was seen, he was on his way to the higher floors to get people out.
.
Moe had a history of heroism - he was involved in rescue efforts during an airplane crash at La Guardia airport; he once climbed a bridge to retrieve the body of a person electrocuted there; he was involved in the rescue effort during the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center; and he rescued a woman from her home, by boat, during Hurricane Floyd. Moe was also a volunteer for the Rutherford Ambulance Corps.

------------------------------------------------------

Most of us can remember exactly where we were and what we were doing on dates of historic importance.

The day President Kennedy was shot I was on a 6th Grade field trip to the Museum of Natural History in New York City. I was sitting in the theatre at the Hayden Planetarium watching a presentation when the show suddenly stopped. The lights went on and it was announced over the PA system that President Kennedy had been shot. We were all told to go home.

The day President Nixon resigned I was at a Crosby, Stills and Nash concert in Roosevelt Stadium on Route 440 in Jersey City (it no longer exists – it has been replaced by condos). CSN announced that Nixon had just resigned and proceeded to break into a rousing version of "Ohio" (“Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming…).

When the planes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, I was on a Parker Tours escorted bus trip to Ocean City, Maryland. At the time of the attack our group was at the Assateague Island National Seashore. We were not told about it until we had returned to the bus and were driving back to our hotel, where we were supposed to attend a welcome reception. The reception was cancelled and we all went to our individual rooms to watch the tragedy unfold on television.

On September 11, 2001, my client, and fellow Dickinson High School Class of 1971 graduate (although we did not discover this until many, many years later when he happened to notice an award I had received from my high school graduating class that was hanging on the wall of the Newark Avenue office and said that he graduated from DHS in 1971 too), Maurice “Moe” Barry was one of the members of the Port Authority Police Emergency Response Team, among the “first responders” to the initial attack, who were killed when the tower collapsed.

Moe always came in to have his tax return prepared on the very last day of the season, April 15, 16 or 17 of each year, a long-standing tradition he first began as a client of my mentor Jim Gill before I “inherited” the practice. Each year when we saw Moe we knew it was almost over. One year he came in on April 10th and we told him to go away and come back on the 15th. To honor Moe’s memory I no longer work on 1040s on the last day of “the season”. For me the tax filing season ends each year on April 14th (or 15th or 16th). 

 

TTFN

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

 

* The IRS reminds us “Child and Dependent Care tax credit can help offset summer day camp expenses”.

A reminder – day camps only, not overnight camps.

* At KIPLINGER.COM Erin Bendig explains how to “Use the 529 Grandparent Loophole to Maximize College Savings” –

“Using a 529 plan can be a great way to save for your grandkids’ college education, and accounts now have an added benefit, thanks to the FAFSA Simplification Act, an overhaul of the processes and systems used to award federal student aid. The simplification, which removed over two-thirds of questions previously asked, lets grandparents with 529 accounts take advantage of what’s called the ‘grandparent loophole’.”

* “Are You Still Waiting on a Refund From a Deceased Taxpayer’s Return?”  You are not alone, according to the NATIONAL TAXPAYER ADVOCATE BLOG –

“TAS estimates that the IRS received nearly 18,000 paper Forms 1310 for 2022 and, through the end of April, the IRS received nearly 14,000 paper Forms 1310 for 2023. Upon receipt of a return with an attached Form 1310, it is our understanding that the IRS separates the paper form from the return for different processing streams. Normally, the IRS processes Form 1310 before processing the return. While the IRS has added Form 1310 to its Modernized e-File platform, depending on the boxes checked on the form, not all Forms 1310 are supported and require paper filing. Unfortunately, the paper Forms 1310 were not properly processed, which created a backlog of unprocessed 2022 and 2023 Forms 1310.”

* And the “IRS” has a “reminder for schoolteachers: Up to $300 in classroom expenses deductible for 2024”.

THE LAST WORD –

For those who are on the fence about Harris and do not support a progressive agenda – don’t think of it as a vote FOR Harris but a vote AGAINST Trump.

EVERY intelligent and patriotic American with a conscience MUST vote for Harris – including true conservatives and “traditional” Republicans.

Absolutely NOTHING is more important than keeping Trump out of the White House. If Trump and today’s Republicans win AMERICA TRULY LOSES.

And be aware that a vote for a third-Party candidate is basically the same as a vote for Trump.

And not voting is basically the same as a vote for Trump.

TTFN

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

 

* “IRS relief now available to Hurricane Debby victims in all of South Carolina, most of Florida and North Carolina, part of Georgia; various deadlines postponed to Feb. 3, 2025.”

* And there is more - “IRS provides relief to Minnesota victims of severe storms, flooding; various deadlines postponed to Feb. 3, 2025.”

* And even more – “Hurricane Debby relief expanded to all of Vermont; various deadlines postponed to Feb. 3, 2025”.  

* Prof. James Edward Maule joins the discussion on the proposal to eliminate tax on tips in “Some Tips About Tips and Taxes” at MAULED AGAIN (highlights are mine) –

“Both major party candidates for the presidency have expressed support for the notion of eliminating federal income (and perhaps employment) taxes on tips. There is no question that this is a ploy designed to gather votes, especially since the proposal wouldn’t amount to much of a benefit, if at all, for most workers who rely on tips to make ends meet.”

Jim correctly explains – “And if tips are exempted from employment taxes, it jeopardizes the eligibility of tipped workers for Social Security and Medicare coverage or reduces what they are eligible to collect.”

Not to mention eliminating tips from income would also reduce, or eliminate, any Earned Income Tax Credit.

As Jim points out –

“Tips are nothing more than another form of compensation for the performance of services. It should make no difference whether money flows directly from a customer to a worker or from the customer to the worker through the employer. In both instances the worker is receiving compensation. If the handful of tipped workers who pay taxes on their tips should be excused from doing so because they are perceived to be earning insufficient income, then the same benefit should be given to all other workers who are earning the similar amounts of insufficient income. In other words, raise the standard deduction or make adjustments in the tax rate schedules rather than singling out one class of worker for special treatment.”

The major beneficiary of eliminating employment taxes on tips would be those who own resorts, hotels, casinos, and restaurants where the bulk of employees are tipped – someone like Trump.

* And the TAX FOUNDATION finds that moron Trump’s other tax proposal “Exempting Social Security Benefits from Income Tax Is Unsound and Fiscally Irresponsible” –

“Exempting Social Security benefits from income tax would increase the budget deficit by about $1.6 trillion over 10 years, accelerate the insolvency of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, and create a new hole in the income tax without a sound policy rationale.”

The current method of calculating taxable Social Security, and Railroad Retirement, benefits is unfair and wrong and should be changed.  As I said in my post “Taxing Social Security” –

“Social Security and equivalent Railroad Retirement benefits would be taxed the same as regular employer pensions are currently taxed.  There would be no special calculation, and the taxable benefit would no longer be affected by increases or decreases in other items of income.  Taxpayer employee contributions would be recovered by amortizing them over the taxpayer’s life using the, what else, ‘Simplified Method’ to determine the taxable amount of the benefits received.” 

* PATCH.COM reports “Automatic ANCHOR Payments Coming For 1.5M NJ Residents” –

“Letters will begin going out on Aug. 19 to about 1.5 million people who have already received a payment, confirming their automatic eligibility for the program, said Treasury officials. Most of these homeowners and renters won't have to re-submit their information, as the Division of Taxation will file their applications automatically. But if any of these residents have moved, changed their name, or gotten a new bank account, they will have to file a new application by Sept. 15 at anchor.nj.gov.”

THE LAST WORD -

The greatest threat to the future of America, American freedom and democracy, and true American values is today’s Republican Party (see here).

No American with a brain or a conscience could possibly support Trump and today’s racist and repressive Republican Party.  If you do you either have no brain, have no conscience, do not care about anyone or anything but yourself, or, like Trump, all three.

TTFN

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

 

* Unlike “the man who would be king” Trump, “Vice President Kamala Harris has released 20 years of personal tax returns, stretching back to the earliest days of her political career”, as Joseph Thorndike reports in “No Surprises In Kamala Harris’s 20 Years Of Tax Returns” at FORBES.COM.

* ACCOUNTING TODAY identifies the “20 states with the highest tax burdens in 2024”.

Of course, New Jersey is in the top 10, although not as high on the list as in the past.

*  Peter J Reilly did an analysis of how the average taxpayer whose income is based on tips would fare under Trump’s ridiculous proposal to exempt tips from taxation in “No Tax On Tips - Now Social Security - What Is Next?” -

“To analyze ‘no tax on tips’, I had to make up a hypothetical waitress who worked 2,000 hours at the tipped employee federal minimum wage of $2.13 and received $30,000 in tips. She had three kids. Then my partner had to create a return in Drake to run three scenarios. The first one was a baseline. The second was based on the Senate bill to exempt tips, which did not change her bottom line at all. The second was on a House bill to exempt tips which, because of how the earned income tax credit works ended up costing the hypothetical waitress about $2,500 net and a possible reduction in future social security benefits. The House bill created some savings for her employer, so there is that.”

As I had previously mentioned here, the main beneficiary of a “no tax on tips” policy would be employers with lots of tipped employees, like Trump.

And, as PJR’s analysis points out, the major beneficiaries of a “no tax on Social Security” would be taxpayers with high income who also collect Social Security, like Trump.

Sadly, these proposals will “buy” Trump votes from the “unwashed”.  Mark Cuban make an astute observation on Trump proposals like these two – “Trump is like that guy wo will say anything to get laid.”  But correctly warns, “only this time he’s trying to fuck the country.”

THE LAST WORD -

Trump’s only real success, and the source of his undeserved credibility, was the excrement known as #RealityTV.

What do Reality TV and Trump and his Presidential campaign, and today’s Republican Party, have in common?

Both are based on presenting fiction as truth.

TTFN

TAXING SOCIAL SECURITY

 

Moron Trump now proposes eliminating federal income tax on Social Security (and, I assume, Railroad Retirement) benefits. 

FYI – the taxability of up to 50% of Social Security benefits (and Social Security equivalent Railroad Retirement benefits) was introduced under Reagan and began in 1984. The taxability was increased to up to 85% in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act in 1993.

Like his proposal to eliminate tax on tips, this is just another attempt to buy votes.

I do believe that the current method of determining taxable Social Security is wrong.  Under the current method whether your Social Security, or Railroad Retirement, benefits are taxed depends on the amount of the other income reported on your 1040-SR – and this includes otherwise tax-exempt interest from investments in municipal bonds and municipal bond funds. For every additional $100 of income, you could be taxed on $185.  So, for a person in the 22% bracket the additional income could be taxed at 41% - more than the current maximum 37% bracket.

Here is how I think Social Security should be taxed – from my book THE TAX CODE MUST BE DESTROYED -

“Social Security and equivalent Railroad Retirement benefits would be taxed the same as regular employer pensions are currently taxed.  There would be no special calculation, and the taxable benefit would no longer be affected by increases or decreases in other items of income.  Taxpayer employee contributions would be recovered by amortizing them over the taxpayer’s life using the, what else, ‘Simplified Method’ to determine the taxable amount of the benefits received.”  

Your thoughts?

TTFN

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

 

* Kay Bell, the yellow rose of taxes, reminds us that “Summer means sales tax holidays: 6 in July, 13 in August” at DON’T MESS WITH TAXES.  {sorry to be a bit late with this - rdf}

* Oi vey!  The NJ Division of Taxation reports the “Repeal of Annual Sales Tax Holiday”.

* “IRS warns taxpayers about misleading claims about non-existent ‘Self Employment Tax Credit;’ promoters, social media peddling inaccurate eligibility suggestions”.

* More disaster relief – “IRS provides relief to Hurricane Beryl victims in Texas; various deadlines postponed to Feb. 3, 2025”.

* Michael Cohn reports some good news at ACCOUNTING TODAY – “New Jersey joins IRS Direct File free tax program”.

THE LAST WORD –

The 2024 election is truly a one-issue election.

The only issue in the upcoming election is protecting American freedoms and democracy by keeping Trump out of the White House and keeping today’s Republican Party from gaining control of Congress.

If the Republican Party wins in 2024 America truly loses.

TTFN

SPECIAL SUMMER OFFER

 A new special summer offer!

I will send you a copy of my book THE JOY OF AVOIDING NEW JERSEY TAXES - the only book I am aware of that provides in detail tax planning and preparation advice, information, and resources for the NJ-1040 – as a pdf email attachment for ONLY $7.00!

Your order must be postmarked by July 31, 2024.

Send your check or money order for $7.00, payable to TAXES AND ACCOUNTING INC, and your email address, to –

TAXES AND ACCOUNTING INC
THE JOY OF AVOIDING TAXES SPECIAL OFFER
POST OFFICE BOX A
HAWLEY PA 18428

Go here to find out what is in this book -

http://robertdflach.blogspot.com/p/the-joy-of-avoiding-new-jersey-taxes.html. 

TTFN