Breaking News

IRS seeks membership nominations for the 2025 Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council

Peter J. Scalise

On Thursday, April 18th the Internal Revenue Service announced that it is now accepting applications for the 2025 Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council (hereinafter “IRSAC”) through May 31, 2024, including nominees for a newly created subcommittee focused on fairness issues. The IRSAC serves as an advisory body to the IRS commissioner...

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Marital Dissolution Planning and Crowdfunding

Divorce Taxation

Sidney Kess, CPA, J.D., LL.M.

When couples split up, it’s still common for one party to make support payments to the other. Sometimes this continues until the death of the party receiving support; sometimes it...

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The Bottom Line

Tax Strategies

Marital Dissolution Planning Post TCJA

Sidney Kess, CPA, J.D., LL.M.

The IRS reports that nearly 600,000 taxpayers claimed an alimony deduction on their 2015 returns (the most recent year for statistics) (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/soi-a-inpd-id1703.pdf). The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017...

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Feature Stories

Tax Court Upholds Strict Adherence to Requirements for IRS P…

Kathleen M. Lach

A recent decision issued by the U.S. Tax Court in Graev v. Commissioner 1 could prove pivotal in cases where a practitioner has requested abatement of penalties for their client...

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Financial Planner

Understanding Pay Options with the new DOL Regulations

Jerry Love, CPA/PFS, CFP, CVA, ABV, CITP, CFF, CFFA

This article is a follow up to the prior article which highlights the new regulations for the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) from the Department of Labor (DOL) raising the...

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Client Tax Tip

How Interest Can Be Deducted When Money is Borrowed to Buy I…

Julie Welch, CPA, CFP

If a taxpayer borrows money to purchase investments, such as mutual funds, bonds or stock, the interest paid on the loan can usually be deducted. There are two limitations, however...

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Editor Blog

CPAs Wanting to Do It Themselves

Joshua Fluegel

In its ongoing effort to stay on the forefront of developments in tax profession technology, CPA Magazine talks to Mark Strassman, president of Make My Day CPA. Strassman discusses CPAs’...

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Tax Checklist

Non-Grantor Trust Planning Tips Benefit Many Clients

Martin M. Shenkman, CPA, MBA, PFS, AEP, JD

Why You Must Understand the New Planning Benefits of Non-Grantor Trusts The 2017 Tax Act dramatically changed tax planning. In the new tax environment, there are a number of significant income...

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mug robert mckenzie

IRS MOTTO: "We're not happy until you're not happy!"

“Ignore them and they’ll go away” is great advice for some of life’s annoyances. Unfortunately, it doesn’t apply to taxes. Martha C. White, Time.com  April 17, 2012.

A white business envelope with your name in the cellophane window and the return address of the IRS: Attention from the Internal Revenue Service can mean only one thing; they want your money. Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel, 5-6-12

Over the years and out of literally thousands of tax protestors who have been criminally prosecuted, a very small handful have won acquittals in their criminal trials, by convincing the jury that they were too stupid to understand that they had to pay taxes. Financial & Tax Fraud Education Associates, Inc

Cutting its (IRS) budget is like killing the goose that lays golden eggs -- or at least putting her in a smaller pen and feeding her less.  By Selena Maranjian, The Motley Fool 2-1-12

Here's a funny story relayed by Internal Revenue Service call center agents: Taxpayers sometimes call in to complain they have mistakenly received letters intended for someone named "Levy." Gadi Dechter, Government Executive, May 16, 2011

“The tax code, once you get to know it, embodies all the essence of [human] life: greed, politics, power, goodness, charity”  David Wallace  via NY Times Courtesy of Jessica Tovrov

"Thirty years of looking at forms, crosschecking forms, filling out the same memos on the same forms," is how David Foster Wallace describes the work of his IRS examiners in his posthumously published book, The Pale King.

Loud dramatic music like you’d hear on TV or at the movies — “DUN-DUN-DUN” — echoes in my head as I pull a letter from our mailbox; it’s from the Internal Revenue Service. I don’t know about you but when Uncle Sam’s money collectors drop a line in the middle of summer instead of around tax time I open the thing right up.  I mean, I don’t mind paying taxes. The USA is a big ol’ country and my hard-earned money helps with such groovy things as superhighways, thermonuclear devices to protect us from rogue nations and anti-revolution insurance. But I know I paid my taxes that year. Uncle Sam’s records said I’d only paid a few hundred dollars but my records showed that I’d paid a few thousand. Somewhere along the way, someone, and it wasn’t me, left off a digit. Grant McGee 8-13-10

          Q: How many IRS agents does it take to screw in a light bulb?

          A: Only one, but the light bulb really  gets screwed.

From Garrison Keillor’s Pretty Good Joke Book   Sent to me by R. Scott Shifley.

 

Robert E. McKenzie is an attorney at Arnstein & Lehr LLP.

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