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

BUZZ BUZZ – the BUZZ is back!

* Russ Fox provided his take on the tax filing season in “The 2019 Tax Season (Part 1): A Miserable Year” at TAXABLE TALK.

He echoes my opinion of the ridiculous new “postcard” 1040 –

“The new postcard-sized forms are a joke. With the old Form 1040, arithmetic worked. If line 39 was the sum of lines 37 and 38, you could just see the result. That’s not the case any more. In various places, you have to know that a + b will not equal c, because you have to add in (say) the result of Schedule 3, too.”

For me the season was not a miserable one.  I give my take here and here.

I look forward to Part 2 of the other RF’s review of the season.

* Kay Bell lists “7 tax record keeping FAQ” at DON’T MESS WITH TAXES.

My take on #3. “How long should I keep records?” is the belief that you should keep a copy of the actual federal 1040 and schedules, and copies of all W-2s, forever.  You never know when information on the return, or the W-2, will come in handy for a variety of reasons, both tax and non-tax.  And it provides a financial history.

* Another timely list – this one from FORBES.COM’s TaxGirl Kelly Phillips Erb – “Made A Mistake On Your Tax Return? 15 Things You Need To Know”.

* Speaking of the TaxGirl, she discusses a recent milestone as a FORBES.COM blogger at her TAXGIRL.COM blog – “What I’ve Learned In 1,000 Tax Posts”.

A belated congratulations to KPE!

* No surprise to me.  Michael Cohn reports “Tax refunds down $4.4B for tax season, says IRS” at ACCOUNTING TODAY.

“The Internal Revenue Service reported a $4.4 billion decline in total tax refunds as of April 19, the first tax season under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, with the average size of tax refunds down about 2 percent.”

Many of my clients received smaller refunds, and some actually owed a substantial amount to Sam, as a result of underwithholding.  I talk about it in my tax-season review – see links above at first item..

* I love it when I can say “I told you so.”   

More from MC at ACCOUNTING TODAY – “Private agencies collecting less than 2% of tax debts”.

“A new program requiring the Internal Revenue Service to hire private debt collection agencies is falling far short of its goals and putting taxpayers at risk of falling prey to scammers, according to a new government report.”

Passing a law requiring the IRS to use outside collection agencies is just more proof of my long-held belief that the members of Congress are idiots who believe that if something doesn’t work keep doing it – although when compared to Diaper Don they look like genius statesmen (and women).

* A post at TAXBUZZ (love the title – wonder where they got it) explains “Accounting Terms: Why Tax Basis Is So Important?”.

A kind of background companion piece to a recent post of mine – click here.

   

THE LAST WORD

Joe Biden gets it.

The biggest threat to the future of America is the Trump presidency. And the number one issue of the 2020 election is removing Trump from office.

The election must NOT be about right vs left - it must be about right vs wrong.

There is one thing that is perfectly clear – Trump is wrong!

TTFN