In the blogs: Smart advice

Infrastructure fantasies; trouble with the U.S.-Malta Treaty; the future of contactless prep; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Fair warning

• Taxable Talk (http://www.taxabletalk.com/): This post “35,300,000” looks at the recent National Taxpayer Advocate’s semi-annual report to Congress, which offered “the true state of tax returns at the IRS. Fair warning, it’s not a pretty picture.”
• Tax Vox (https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/): No Plan’s Perfect Dept.: President Biden and a bipartisan group of senators have agreed to the framework of a plan to boost infrastructure spending by about $579 billion. On top of already-planned spending for roads, bridges, transit, water and broadband, it would amount to a massive $1 trillion. And they have agreed to pay for it largely with…pixie dust.
• The Tax Times (https://www.thetaxtimes.com): The IRS is hiring thousands of new auditors as it gears up for a potentially massive enforcement push should Congress approve $40 billion to expand audits on the wealthy.
• Rubin on Tax (http://rubinontax.floridatax.com/): The stuff that dreams are made of: The Maltese pension plan is a planning device for U.S. taxpayers to use the U.S.-Malta tax treaty to obtain tax deferral and tax avoidance benefits similar to a Roth IRA but without many of the limitations. Except the IRS has added the arrangement to its 2021 Dirty Dozen scams list, at least as to transfers of appreciated property to the plan.
• Tax Foundation (https://taxfoundation.org/blog): After weeks of deliberations, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has signed into law a budget for Fiscal Year 2022 that reduces the state’s individual income tax rates and consolidates brackets, a plan that will help restore Arizona’s reputation as a low-tax alternative to California. What the final bill looked like.
• John R. Dundon II EA (http://johnrdundon.com/): Taking Your Lumps Dept.: Is coal dead in Colorado? This is one of many questions arising out of recent combined legislation that expanded tax credits for working families and small businesses but hurt the coal industry.
• Allison Christians (https://www.allisonchristians.com/blog): The OECD says 130 countries have in principle agreed to build a world in which some number of large multinationals face a minimum rate of income tax on a base of income that will be roughly harmonized in some fashion. “As always, the devil will be in the details, and there will be a lot of devils.” A couple quick illustrations of the key parts of the consensus, “just to keep all the big picture pieces straight.”
• National Taxpayer Advocate (https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/taxnews-information/blogs-nta/): Part III of “Filing Season Bumps in the Road.”
• Mauled Again (http://mauledagain.blogspot.com/): Is it enough simply to warn taxpayers to be on the alert for suspicious behavior and questionable marketing techniques by preparers? Of course not, as a recent Illinois case demonstrates.

Smart advice

• Taxing Subjects (https://www.drakesoftware.com/blog): A recent survey of more than 3,800 tax pros nationwide wanted to learn how they chose to offer contactless prep — and if they’d continue to do so post-pandemic.
• Sikich (https://www.sikich.com/insights/): Although SEO and PPC can work well together, they are both two very different digital marketing strategies. What’s the difference? A look at each strategy separately and which might be better for your practice.
• Canopy (https://www.canopytax.com/blog): A recent webinar looks at how to grow a firm with client accounting and advisory services.
• National Association of Tax Professionals (https://blog.natptax.com/): This week’s “You Make the Call” looks at a U.S. corporation that hires employees from the Dominican Republic who want to be paid in U.S. dollars. The payments are made directly to these employees who perform services in the Dominican Republic for the U.S. corporation. Is there a federal income tax withholding requirement for the wages paid?
• Procedurally Taxing (https://procedurallytaxing.com): First-time guest blogger Jennifer Burdick, an attorney with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia focusing on Social Security benefits, explains the notice and appeal rights that typically apply in public benefit programs and why they’re crucial to clients accessing benefits.
• Tax Pro Center (https://proconnect.intuit.com/taxprocenter/): As the next generation of financial and tax professionals rises through the ranks and begins building and running their own practices and firms, why to expect big changes — especially in the balance between compliance and advisory services offered.
• Surgent Income Tax School (http://www.theincometaxschool.com/blog/): Why diversify your business? The biggest reason: lower risk.
• Wolters Kluwer (http://news.cchgroup.com/): The construction industry has been one of the hardest hit during COVID lockdowns. To help keep their doors open and retain many of their employees, general and independent contractors took loans under the Paycheck Protection Program, but the headline forgiveness of the loans seems hard for construction businesses. That problem may be getting easier.
• Turbotax (https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com): Why your affected clients might want to opt out of the Child Tax Credit.

Senses of wonder

• Bloomberg Tax (https://pro.bloombergtax.com/news-insights/): Proving that longtime Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg intentionally evaded taxes on nearly $1.8 million in off-the-books perks will be critical for New York prosecutors to make criminal charges stick, legal experts say.
• Federal Tax Crimes (http://federaltaxcrimes.blogspot.com/): Some preliminary comments on the indictment include such phrases as “fairly common pattern” and “one has to wonder.”
• TaxProf Blog (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/): A federal judge in Ohio has blocked the Biden administration from preventing Ohio from using money it got from a federal coronavirus relief bill to pay for tax cuts. The culprit? “Clarity.”
• Avalara (https://www.avalara.com/us/en/blog.html): No more compromises: Missouri becomes the last state with a sales tax to enact economic nexus.