Hawai'i rarely takes a direct hit from a hurricane, but in late August 2016, two strong tropical cyclones, Lester and Madeline, headed toward the United States' island paradise. Luckily for the islands' residents, Madeline fell apart a bit and passed south of the Big Island. Lester also lost intensity and stayed east of the 50th state. (Image courtesy NASA) Hello tropical storm season 2022, which once again is starting early. The Pacific hurricane season officially began on May 15. Generally, though, the first named Pacific storm doesn't show up until early to mid-June. Hurricane Agatha jumped the gun a tad.... Read more →
May 2022
Photo courtesy National Park Service Memorial Day commemorations of the service members who made the ultimate sacrifice tend to be outdoors. That's because they usually involve military participation and flourishes. People also head this long federal holiday weekend to national parks, many of which honor military service members today and year-round. Events will be held today at the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C. There are more than a dozen units of the National Park system and more than 100 unique monuments and memorials in the national capital. National parks honoring national sacrifices: The tributes in America's Front... Read more →
U.S. Continental Navy ship Alfred at its commissioning at Philadelphia on Dec. 3, 1775, captured in this oil painting by W. Nowland Van Powell. America's earliest sailors also were the new nation's first whistleblowers. (Image courtesy Naval History and Heritage Command) Memorial Day and its surrounding weekend days are to honor those in the armed forces who gave their all to protect us and our country. But, thank goodness, the ultimate sacrifice isn't required in all cases. Sometimes other forms of protection are just as necessary to protect us and society at large against fraud, waste, and abuse of power.... Read more →
Photo by Mateusz Dach Every new year starts with optimism about what can be accomplished, even (or perhaps especially) in the tax world. Then comes summer, and expectations dim. That's especially true on the federal law-making level in an election year. Democrats have adjusted their hoped-for pre-Memorial Day deadline to move a slimmed-down budget reconciliation bill that would implement higher taxes on the wealthy, combat climate change, and lower the cost of prescription drugs. The same stop sign has been flashed internationally, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's global tax plan meeting resistance abroad and at home. But there is some... Read more →
The annual Memorial Day weekend is almost here. The three-day holiday, officially celebrated the last Monday in May, unofficially marks the beginning of summer. Millions of Americans, restive after years of COVID-19 precautions limited their travel and festivities, are heading out today. But the name of the holiday underscores what it's really about. Memorial Day is to honor military service men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice. The United States total military war deaths are nearly 1.4 million. The National Moment of Remembrance Act was enacted in December 2000, creating the White House Commission on the National Moment of... Read more →
Update, Monday, Aug. 8, 2022: Robert J. Brockman died at his Houston, Texas, home on Aug. 5, 2022. That effectively ends federal prosecutors' criminal tax evasion case against Brockman. Civil tax litigation, however, will continue against his estate. Shutterstock The billionaire charged in the largest U.S. tax fraud case ever is one step closer to facing trial. Robert J. Brockman, the former CEO of Reynolds & Reynolds, a software company for auto dealerships, was indicted on Oct. 1, 2020, on 39 counts of evading taxes on $2 billion of income. The 20-year scheme, according to the Internal Revenue Service Criminal... Read more →
The Internal Revenue Service says that it is "opening mail within normal timeframes and all paper and electronic individual refund returns received prior to April 2021 have been processed if the return had no errors or did not require further review." That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that as of May 14, the IRS also reports on its mission-critical web page that "we had 9.8 million unprocessed individual returns which include returns received before 2022." But the agency also has a bit more good news if you're still waiting on a refund based on your tax year 2021... Read more →
This coming Memorial Day long weekend is the first in more than two years that millions of Americans are treating as more-or-less normal. (Remember that?) And people's pent-up travel wishes are pushing aside COVID-19 pandemic worries in a big way. AAA Memorial Day 2022 forecast AAA predicts 39.2 million people will travel 50 miles or more from home this Memorial Day three-day holiday. This is an increase of 8.3 percent over 2021, and brings travel volumes almost in line with those in 2017. But another year also comes to mind. Back in 2012, gasoline was $3.64 per gallon. When adjusted... Read more →
Photo by Pixabay Today the hubby got a disconcerting mailing from one of his investment accounts. It had paperwork for survivor claims. The last we checked (a few hours ago), he is very much alive. And since neither he nor I asked for this information, we immediately thought someone might have stolen his identity and tried to cash out this account. That doesn't seem to be the case (whew!). Our initial checks into the account, both ourselves online and by calling the investment company, indicate there's no security issue. But it's a good reminder to stay on top of your... Read more →
The 16-year tax fight between a former pizza franchise mogul and the state of Kansas is over. The Sunflower State owes Gene Bicknell $63 million. At least that's the amount that Bicknell, who at one time owned the most Pizza Huts in the world, says he's due from the Kansas Department of Revenue (KDOR) after it erroneously taxed him as a Kansas resident when he lived in Florida. Kansas vs. Florida tax residence status: Bicknell's legal tax residency was at the heart of the multimillion-dollar tax matter. The KDOR said Bicknell was a Kansas resident. Bicknell, however, argued that his... Read more →
Jamie Lee Curtis plays an IRS examiner in the new indie hit Everything Everywhere All at Once from A24 Films. She even gets a fight scene in the movie. Check it out at the May item in my tumblr blog Tumbling Taxes. Tax Day 2022 has come and gone, and most of us, for better or worse, are done with taxes for another year. But if you want a little more tax in your life — fictional, not real — then you always can take in a movie. Yep, taxes show up in movies a lot. Sometimes our revenue obligations,... Read more →
The Small Business Administration's annual Small Business Week events ended earlier this month, but another federal agency now is doing its part to support companies. The U.S. Treasury Department this week announced five states will receive the first round of newly-reauthorized State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) money. SSBCI was first established in 2010. The program was reauthorized and expanded in March 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). It now has nearly $10 billion that will go to states for programs that promote entrepreneurship nationwide. Hawaii, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, and West Virginia are the first states... Read more →
I have a stock app on my phone. Yeah, that's it above, with all those ugly, jagged red lines. I'm smart enough not to get alerts, but now and then when I check other news, I see it. Like today, which got me thinking it's time to delete this piece of electronic info, at least for a while. But while I'm not enjoying the prospect of delaying the start of my golden years, the declining stock market is good news for some retirement account owners. If they have traditional IRAs, the current down market could be a good time for... Read more →
One of our neighbors made sure we all knew they had a new, cool graduate. (Photo by Kay Bell) I swear, my nieces and nephews were just in kindergarten. And wasn't that neighbor kid trick-or-treating as a dinosaur a couple of years ago? So how am I getting high school and college graduation announcements for these young people? Most of them will get a nice, actual paper congratulations card. A few will find a gift card tucked inside. However, a couple of these newly minted young adults will get actual gifts. But they won't be items that have to wrapped.... Read more →
Billowing smoke from the wildfire ravaging norther New Mexico. (Screen shot of video posted on The Weather Channel, provided by Jackson Mathey via Storyful) The Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon wildfires that have merged and been burning a large swath of northern New Mexico for weeks now has been designated as the largest in the state's history. The combined blazes, driven by straight-line winds, have engulfed nearly 300,000 acres, or around 469 square miles, of the Land of Enchantment as of this morning. Only around a quarter of the fire area has been contained, according to InciWeb, a U.S. government... Read more →
Crypto currency aficionados thought the worse thing happening to their holdings lately was the crashing market prices. Sorry. There's more. Tax investigators say they've discovered a possible $1 billion Ponzi scheme focusing on the crypto market. More than 50 potential crypto tax offences have been uncovered by international tax inspectors, according to reports out of a recent London conference of leaders of the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement (J5) countries. The J5 was created to fight transnational tax crime through increased enforcement collaboration. The participating tax agencies — the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), France's... Read more →
Unemployment benefits can help relieve some of the sting of losing your job. But there are downsides. The monthly amounts again are fully taxable. And during the COVID pandemic, criminals have had a field day getting fraudulent payments, and causing tax troubles for those individuals whose identities they stole. The COVID-19 pandemic and employment still are inextricably linked. When the coronavirus hit the United States in 2020, the concern was for the companies that had to shut down, and their employees who suddenly were without paychecks. Congress passed a series of COVID relief bills that provided relief options for companies... Read more →
Photo by Karolina Grabowska Interest payments are a part of almost every person's life. If you carry a credit card balance, you pay interest on it. If you have a mortgage, interest is probably the largest (but, for now, still tax-deductible) part of your monthly payment. And if you don't pay all the federal tax you owe on time, interest adds to you total U.S. Treasury bill. But with taxes, the reverse also is true. When the Internal Revenue Service is slow in getting your overpayment processed, your refund will include interest payments to you. And right now, due to... Read more →
Here are this weekend's full Flower Moon eclipse stages. The moon moves right to left, passing through the penumbra and umbra, leaving in its wake an eclipse diagram with the times (Eastern time zone) at various stages of the eclipse. Visualizations by Ernie Wright, NASA Scientific Visualization Studio. Click here for the video version. And if it's cloudy where you live, you can livestream the eclipse. It's Friday the 13th, the only one in 2022. A total lunar eclipse will turn the full Flower Moon red Sunday night. The only thing that could amp up our combined superstitions and natural... Read more →
The Child Tax Credit (CTC), already a popular tax break, was enhanced for the 2021 tax year. In addition to being larger — up to $3,600 for each child younger 6 and up to $3,000 for each youngster age 6 through 17 instead up the usual $2,000 per qualifying child — it was available to more families. Most eligible households got half of their qualifying CTC amount last year as monthly advance payments. They were sent automatically to taxpayers who had filed returns in prior years. Families who didn't have to file, usually because they earned less than the amount... Read more →