In the blogs: Fuel me once

Energy-policy mess; time is not on your side; cybersecurity planning; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

All in the game

• CPA Growth Trends (https://www.cpagrowthtrends.com/): Can your marketer help get rid of the deadwood clients? One marketer did — by offering price increases.
• The Tax Times (https://www.thetaxtimes.com): There’s a new player on the field when it comes to IRS attention to cryptocurrency: stablecoins.
• Tax Foundation (https://taxfoundation.org/blog): European footballers, and especially the highly skilled, well-paid ones, tend to choose countries with low personal income tax rates. Tax incentives or tax breaks designed for foreign top players are also common. So “Can Taxes Predict the UEFA Champions League Winner?”
• National Association of Tax Professionals (https://blog.natptax.com/): This week’s “You Make the Call” looks at Robyn, who quit her job after signing with a publishing company to begin a business career writing books as an independent contractor (not just a one-time publication). She landed a lucrative publishing contract for a book series that spans several years, and the publishing company pays royalties to Robyn reportable on a 1099-MISC. Plans for a home office were already underway when Robyn sought out a tax pro to consult. Is Robyn’s royalty income reportable on Schedule E?

Fuel me once

• Sovos (https://sovos.com/blog/?region=united-states): The focus now is on 2022’s many accounting and reporting changes for statutory filing. “Do not be fooled into thinking that implementation of these changes will be effortless or without a time investment.” For those still looking for a better understanding or a place to begin, read on.
• National Taxpayer Advocate (https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/taxnews-information/blogs-nta/): If you’re working with the IRS Independent Office of Appeals, don’t assume that working toward a resolution equates to the IRS’s ability to pay a refund or allow a credit — particularly during pandemic-created delays.
• Tax Vox (https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/): The result of well-publicized recent events is “a head-spinning cacophony of tax-related energy policies.” Is the goal to lower oil prices and increase consumption? Or to raise prices and lower consumption? Does government want to encourage or discourage production? In short, how should today’s oil price shock motivate energy-related tax policy?
• Mauled Again (http://mauledagain.blogspot.com/: It also turns out that suspending the gasoline tax can smack fuel dealers right in their octanes, especially in a state like Connecticut — where, the blogger suspects, the state attorney general doesn’t understand cost accounting.
• Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (https://itep.org/category/blog/): The two-part look at how states are rushing through regressive tax cuts wraps up with many of those same states’ further actions on those bills — and it’s safe to say the bloggers are even less impressed than before.

Get yourself free

• Boyum & Barenscheer (https://www.myboyum.com/blog/): A lesson for nonprofits is a lesson for us all: Classify workers correctly or face intensifying repercussions.
• Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders (http://ritakeller.com/blog/): Some probably badly needed tips on clarifying PTO and remote-work policies.
• TaxProf Blog (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/): Favorite opening of the week: “Obtaining an abatement of interest reminds me of Paul Simon’s song ‘50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.’ Sure, the ‘50 ways’ in the song title is misleading. By my count, Simon gives us only four. And some are singularly unhelpful for real life advice….” Might be a lot more ways to lose, it appears, when a taxpayer wants the IRS to abate interest charges.
• Wolters Kluwer (https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/solutions/tax-accounting-us/industry-news): Just a reminder that the IRS will kick back e-filed returns lacking the required 8962.
• Don’t Mess with Taxes (http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/): Remember that Monty Python line that the cure to Britain’s financial problems was to tax all foreigners living abroad? Well, Americans who live overseas do have extra time to file.

Tips and times

• Taxable Talk (http://www.taxabletalk.com/): The latest Bozo Tax Tip can be summed up in one word: procrastinate. What to mention to your late to-doers.
• Palm Beach Accounting and Financial Services (https://www.pbafs.com/blog): Five cybersecurity tips to remind them about again and again and again these days. (Good credited copy for your e-letter, perhaps…).
• Summing It Up (http://blog.freedmaxick.com/summing-it-up): “Twelve Benefit Plan Cybersecurity Best Practices” kicks off with good documentation on a plan’s cybersecurity program and smart annual risk assessments.
• Parametric (https://www.parametricportfolio.com/blog): Fixed income investors should keep a close eye on the tax implications of the muni-to-Treasury ratio. A crossover trade may prove useful — and this quiz insightful.
• Avalara (https://www.avalara.com/blog/en/north-america.html): What your clients who sell online had better know about origin- and destination-based sales tax.
• Turbotax (https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com): What to remind them about claiming an elderly parent as a dependent.