Reopening the IRS; wording a referendum; the season that won’t end; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.
Still going viral
- Bloomberg Tax (
https://pro.bloombergtax.com/news-insights/ ): Some federal workers say they’ve already decided to retire if forced to go back to the office while the coronavirus pandemic is still raging. The trend could hit agencies with older workers particularly hard, including the IRS. - Summing It Up (
http://blog.freedmaxick.com/summing-it-up ): Business continuity and survival have become a function of trying to reorganize people and processes into new workforce models, using technology as a common denominator. One checklist tool for cybersecurity. - Procedurally Taxing (
https://procedurallytaxing.com ): On Aug. 8, President Trump issued the “Memorandum on Deferring Payroll Tax Obligations in Light of the Ongoing COVID-19 Disaster.” How “despite the impression of sloppy reporters in the non-tax press, the memorandum actually does not do anything yet.” - Wolters Kluwer (
http://news.cchgroup.com/ ): The pandemic has done more than a mountain of past brochures to make firms realize the value of cloud-based solutions. Still, when COVID-19 landed, many firms scrambled to transition their workforce to working remotely. Here are the latest cloud considerations. - The Income Tax School (
http://www.theincometaxschool.com/blog/ ): Pandemic or not, if you’ve been knee-deep in tax returns while navigating Payroll Protection Program loans and other COVID-related items, you owe it to yourself, your body, your sanity and your family to unplug. How to do that safely. - Taxjar (
http://blog.taxjar.com/ ): We’ve all seen the headlines on COVID-19’s impact on businesses, but what do the actual numbers say about ecommerce? Four top trends across the industry. - Avalara (
https://www.avalara.com/us/en/blog.html ): In a potential sign of things to come. vendors’ pandemic surcharges have become subject to sales tax in South Carolina. - Turbotax (
https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com ): What to tell the furloughed.
Clues
- Taxing Subjects (
https://www.drakesoftware.com/blog ): The IRS has made strides in the online service sector, installing helpful applications to aid individual taxpayers. But a new audit shows that if an unauthorized user manages to get into the system, often the apps can’t show investigators where those intruders went. - Boyum & Barenscheer (
https://myboyum.com/blog/ ): How auditors and forensic accountants may be able to detect inflated income and other financial manipulation by testing journal entries. - Rubin on Tax (
http://rubinontax.floridatax.com ): The income tax treatment of annuities is provided for under Code Section 72. That section provides various rules, including extra income tax for some distributions to younger taxpayers and limits on deferral for entity owners. The provisions can be difficult to interpret when the owner of the annuity is a grantor trust, and the annuitant and current beneficiary of the trust is not the grantor. A recent private letter ruling gives the IRS’s take on some of these issues.
The up and up
- Mauled Again (
http://mauledagain.blogspot.com/ ): In California, citizens can propose legislative changes by putting a referendum, or proposition, on the ballot. The details of how that process works are one thing, but another is the language of the proposition and the voter information guide that is published to explain the proposition. A look at voters’ upcoming choice on Proposition 15, which would repeal portions of the famous Proposition 13 that limited how much property taxes could be increased. - Taxable Talk (
http://www.taxabletalk.com/ ): “How High Is Too High?” when it comes to raising state taxes on the rich as the pandemic continues to rip revenues? - Tax Foundation (
https://taxfoundation.org/blog ): While we’re on the subject, higher taxes might not be the solution for Canada and its provinces. - National Association of Tax Professionals (
https://blog.natptax.com/ ): If you’ve been thinking about expanding beyond individual returns, you may be hesitant about being prepared to start taking on business clients. Some of the basics of business taxation that you need to review. - Taxbuzz (
https://www.taxbuzz.com/blog ): In the most recent chat, a breakdown of the tax season that never ends.
