This pup looks like he's asking it it's time to open gifts. (Photo by Unsplash+ in collaboration with Getty Images) Next Monday morning, Dec. 25, many families will welcome a new member. I'm talking, of course, about a pet. A puppy, kitten, or other pet of any type of age can be a wonderful addition to a home. Pros and cons of pets as presents: But many animal groups and veterinarians warn against giving a pet, especially as a surprise, during the holidays. This already is a stressful time for many, and if everyone who will be involved in the... Read more →
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Unsplash+ in collaboration with Philip Oroni Get ready fellow taxpayers. Our robot tax overlords are here. Or rather, getting more here. The Internal Revenue Service began using artificial intelligence (AI) bots last year to help taxpayers complete some tax tasks, such as setting up a payment plan. Today, the agency announced that it is expanding its use of chatbots to help answer some tax notice questions. Specifically, the technology should help quickly answer basic questions for people who get notices about possibly underreporting their taxes. Those are CP2000, CP2501, and CP3219A mailings that tell taxpayers the information the IRS received... Read more →
Nothing ever disappears on the internet. Even, or especially, tax related posts. Take the bad legal take on taxes that tops this post. It was retweeted on Sunday (Dec. 11) by, you guessed it, Bad Legal Takes. But there's no indication of when Dave Champion originally blasted out his bad tax advice. It might have been before he was barred by a federal court in 2012 from promoting a tax fraud scheme. Or maybe he's back, since this Tweet apparently went up in October. His books also are still for sale online. Either way, that item this weekend spurred a... Read more →
Photo by Vidal Balielo Jr. via Pexels Filing status is one of those tax matters that seems so simple, but which often trips up taxpayers in real life. As noted (shameless plug warning) in my 5 filing status choices item for the April Tax Tips page, most folks' status stays the same from tax year to tax year. But a change (or two, or more) in your personal situation could mean you need to revisit how you file your return. The head of household (HoH) status is a frequent source of confusion. Here, an unmarried person takes care of the... Read more →
Today is EITC Awareness Day! OK, Jan. 28 isn't an official holiday to celebrate the Earned Income Tax Credit, usually referred to (at least in the tax world) by its acronym EITC. But it is an annual event promoted by the Internal Revenue Service. Every year in late January, the tax agency focuses on getting the word out about the EITC. The reason is simple. Millions of individuals regularly overlook the EITC and surrendering thousands of dollars they could use. The EITC itself, however, is not so easy to claim. That's why a lot of folks ignore it. The IRS... Read more →
Millions of parents are as happy as these youngsters, thanks to the first Advance Child Tax Credit payment that arrived this month. Others, however, are wondering why they got less. The first of six scheduled Advance Child Tax Credit payments have arrived, and for the most part, the recipients are elated. Paul Williams, an economist and writer, has collected many of the happy recorded (or recreated) reactions in an entertaining Twitter thread. Some folks, however, aren't so thrilled. In fact, they're wondering why they didn't get the full $300 per month for each dependent child younger than age 6 and... Read more →
U.S. Treasury check image courtesy frankieleon via Flickr Some people have already received the third economic impact payment (EIP), which is $1,400 per person, as authorized under the just enacted American Rescue Plan. Of course, we're already hearing some grumbling. That's to be expected any time the Internal Revenue Service, which once again is tasked with distributing the relief money, is involved. But at least initially the IRS seems to have the system down after having done this two previous times. So now we wait. Hopefully we don't have to wait too long. And while we wait, today's Saturday Shout... Read more →
The tax filing season clock is ticking, but will the alarm go off on April 15 as usual? That's the IRS plan for now, but some in Congress and the tax community would like Uncle Sam to extend the 2021 Tax Day deadline like happened last year. The Internal Revenue Service is insistent that despite a later than normal opening of the 2021 tax filing season, it will end as usual on April 15. Some lawmakers and members of the tax community, however, think this filing season needs to follow the 2020 example and be extended beyond the usual mid-April... Read more →
Patrick Mahomes, a possible future GOAT, and his Kansas City Chiefs look to win a second consecutive Super Bowl. To do so, they'll have to control GOAT Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. (CBS promotional photo) It's Super Bowl LV weekend. A very subdued one, in keeping with the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. The National Football League and CBS Sports are doing what they can to gin up excitement. And for the millions of us who'll watch on TV, that's probably enough. Heck, the match-up of Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady is probably enough. But cities across the country, even... Read more →
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is the federal government's largest refundable federal income tax credit for low- to moderate-income workers. In 2020, more than 25 million taxpayers received over $62 billion in EITC. The average EITC amount received last year was $2,461 per return. The EITC also is regularly overlooked. The Internal Revenue Service estimates that one of five eligible taxpayers do not claim the credit. That oversight could change this filing season. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed millions of American workers into lower income brackets last year as their work was reduced. That could make them eligible for this... Read more →
And be ready to pay tax on your winnings Quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs and Jimmy Garoppolo of the 49ers will lead their teams Sunday, Feb. 2, in Super Bowl LIV. Quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs and Jimmy Garoppolo of the 49ers will lead their teams Sunday, Feb. 2, in Super Bowl LIV. I've been to Las Vegas. I love that city. But I know nothing about betting. My gambling, aside from a half hour or so at a Sin City slot machine years ago, is losing a few bucks on a lottery ticket every time the Powerball... Read more →
Congratulations! You made it through Thanksgiving. And Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. Are you ready for one more special day before the end-of-year biggies? I'm talking about today, Giving Tuesday. Giving Tuesday, a post-Thanksgiving fixture since 2012, is the unofficial kick-off of the annual end-of-year charitable season Today was designed as a global day during which folks are encouraged to give back to their communities and the charitable causes they care about. The timing fits right into the end-of-year solicitations by nonprofit organizations and the annual tax considerations of donors. Tax cuts also cut donor numbers: Over... Read more →
The Apollo 11 lunar landing mission crew, pictured from left to right, Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, command module pilot; and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot. (Photo courtesy NASA/Wikipedia Commons) Today, July 20, is a momentous day for science, the spirit of adventure and humanity. At 10:56 p.m. Eastern Time (9:56 p.m. in my West Texas hometown's Central Time zone), Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. I remember sitting on the floor in front of our black and white television with my younger brother. We had been allowed, actually encouraged, to stay up late to... Read more →
If the changes to Form 1040 this filing season frustrated you, there's some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the Internal Revenue Service is revising the Form 1040 to be used for 2019 tax filings. No, it's still not quite a postcard. But there will be fewer schedules to file — three instead of six — if your taxes are a bit more complicated. The bad news is that many of us still have to fill out those schedules (and the accompanying forms for additional tax break claims that remained) instead of having things on... Read more →
Today was one of those days where personal stuff took precedence over work and tax matters. As a freelancer, I'm usually able to plan things so the I can do both without too much trouble. Not today. Personal issues won. That meant I missed out on a #TaxBuzzChat. This is a regular Twitter conversation among online tax folks on various, topical tax matters. Today a bunch of my Twitter pals — including, but not limited to @beanna_whitlock, @BrettNealCPA, @bstonercpa, @cbriancpa, @DebFoxFinancial, @MelindaNCPA, @RobergTax and @ShaunHunley — discussed year-end tax planning in light of the changes wrought by the Tax Cuts... Read more →
I spent most of today with my Mom, running errands with her and chauffeuring her to a couple of medical appointments. (She's fine. It was routine stuff. Thanks for asking.) But I did make time to hook up with my peeps, all the Twittering tax experts, accountants, writers, preparers, attorneys, Enrolled Agents and general tax geeks who set aside an hour at the beginning of each month to talk taxes. Specifically, we were part of the first #TaxBuzzChat of 2018, coordinated and moderated by, as the name (and my headline) indicates, TaxBuzz.com. As you guessed — OK, noticed in the... Read more →
Sports fans tend to be, well, fanatic. To many, it's what a player does during the game, not his or her off-field antics that matter. Moment of the Champions League final with FC Barcelona's Leo Messi, left, going against Patrice Evra of Juventus at Olympiastadion in Berlin on June 6, 2015. (Photo by Biser Todorov via Wikimedia Commons) That kind of no-questions-asked support was what the Barcelona football -- or soccer, as most Americans call the sport -- team was counting on in the wake of its star player's tax evasion conviction. Public outreach, tax backlash: Last week after Lionel... Read more →
I've occasionally jotted a note on a 1040. Usually it was to bring Internal Revenue Service attention to an attachment I included or to explain why an examiner might find an entry, shall we say, intriguing. But for the most part, I don't carry on written conversations with the tax man or woman. Donald Rumsfeld, however, takes a different position. The former secretary of defense who most recently served in the George W. Bush administration apparently writes a letter to the IRS each year and sends it along with his tax return. We know this thanks to Rummy's announcement on... Read more →
Tax-writing committee chairmen launch tax reform website
Thursday, May 09, 2013
During my early years in Washington, D.C., when folks got worked up about an issue, they wrote their members of Congress. Honest to God pen to paper, postage stamp letters. Yeah, I know. Quaint meets geezer alert. But back then, it was what we had. We got bags and bags of mail on hot-button issues. And it worked. Just as well as it did at Kris Kringle's trial in "Miracle on 34th Street." 'Write Rosty' a tax reform winner: One of the most successful correspondence campaigns was in support of what became the historic Tax Reform Act of 1986. Back... Read more →
When the final week before Tax Day rolled around, so did concerns about taxpayer privacy. First came worries that the Internal Revenue Service might be spying on tax audit targets via social media. Infographic courtesy "Why Privacy is Overrated" It's unclear as to whether the tax agency has formalized such a strategy (more on this in a few paragraphs). But, as I noted last week at my other tax blog, it wouldn't be too much of a surprise for tax investigators to take advantage of all public resources. That means if you do insist on bragging about a high-dollar lifestyle... Read more →