Saturday, July 30, 2011

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

* Check out my article “What Unemployment Does to Your Taxes” at MainStreet.com!

* New Jersey homeowners should check out my post “NJ Property Tax Relief Programs Update” at the NJ TAX PRACTICE BLOG.

* My last reminder to check out the July 2011 issue of LOIS. A new issue will be available next week.

* Kelly Phillips Erb reports that “Back to School Sales Tax Holidays on Tap for Many States” at FORBES.COM.

For those of you who are super shoppers – and manage to buy school supplies before school actually starts – you may be able to benefit from a number of back to school related sales tax holidays this summer.”

* And, in “Five Things You Need to Know About the Current Airline Ticket Tax Controversy”, Kelly tells us –

If you paid for tickets on or before July 22, 2011, for travel beginning on or after July 23, 2011, you may be entitled to a refund of ticket taxes already paid.”

However, as Kelly points out, it ain’t going to be easy.

Kay Bell also discusses the issue in “IRS, Airlines at Odds Over Issuing Ticket Tax Refunds” at DON’T MESS WITH TAXES.

* Speaking of Kay Bell, she has been attending the annual IRS Nationwide Tax Forum in Dallas and has been offering random observations on each day’s activities. See Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3. She will be posting on what she learned at the educational sessions in the weeks to come.

I am not attending the Forum this year because they moved the northeast location from New York City to the Washington DC area.

I like the quote she provided from veteran Forum presenter Larry Gray, another Missouri tax guy and former president of NATP, on Day 2 -

"We're all talking about Congress not doing anything about the debt. But If Congress wouldn't do anything in tax law for while, we might figure out how to do the returns."

As part of my new Tax Code I have proposed that, once passed, there should be a statutory prohibition from any change to the Code for a period of ten year.

* TIGTA (the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration) continues to find fraud and FUs in the disastrous First Time Homebuyer’s Credit.

It’s latest findings are reported in “Control Weaknesses Over Amended Returns Allowed Some Inappropriate Claims for the First-Time Homebuyer Credit to Be Allowed”.

* Joe Kristan responds to my “Here We Go Again” post with “Costs of Regulation: What Robert Is Missing” at the ROTH AND COMPANY TAX UPDATE BLOG. Be sure to read the comments.

Joe and I disagree on the need for registration and licensure of tax return preparers – but here is one thing we do agree on (from another Roth and Company post) –

If the tax law itself were drafted competently, preparer competency wouldn't be an issue. Yet competency testing for Congresscritters and Treasury Secretaries doesn't seem to be on the table.”

* Joe Arsenault of CAFÉ TAX fame provides a “Guest Post: Mid-Year Personal Tax Planning Tips from Cafe Tax” at TAX RESOLUTION UNIVERSITY.

* If you ever needed proof of my contention that the members of Congress are idiots just look at the current inability of the fools to work together on a vital issue.

Come the next election we should vote against all incumbent "Congresscritters" and show the idiots that their behavior is unacceptable!

TTFN

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