Advice

At the center of President Donald Trump’s dispute with the IRS is a $72.9 million tax refund. He can thank his predecessor for that benefit. Trump was able to generate a massive tax refund by using a provision President Barack Obama signed into law in 2009 during the financial crisis, according to an analysis of

The Internal Revenue Service has asked a watchdog to investigate the tax system’s security after the New York Times disclosed that its reporters had reviewed more than two decades of President Donald Trump’s tax information. IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig asked the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration to look at whether the agency’s system to

The Internal Revenue Service has issued final regulations that update the federal income tax withholding rules for certain periodic retirement and annuity payments made after Dec. 31. In July, the IRS released a draft of a redesigned 2021 Form W-4P and instructions intended to align with the redesigned W-4. The draft W-4P also proposed a

More bucks for the IRS; deductible haircuts; virtues of virtual learning; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers. Getting serious Tax Vox (https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox): Yin and Yang Dept: “How Much More Money Could the IRS Collect If Congress Gave Them More Money?” TaxProf Blog (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/): Turns out the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that modest

Deductions for haircuts, consulting fee write-offs, a family estate that is treated as a business property and an aggressive refund claim could open President Donald Trump to legal risks once he’s out of office. An analysis published by the New York Times, based on more than two decades of Trump’s tax returns the news organization

Reopenings begin with masks, conference rooms have gone Zoom, and businesses face a load of new questions — but for many, the future comes down to one: “How am I going to survive?” “It really depends on the business. It’s hard to tell a spa client to go virtual,” said Lawrence Pon, a CPA at

President Donald Trump paid just $750 in U.S. income taxes in both 2016 and 2017, reported losing millions of dollars from his golf courses and has hundreds of millions in debt that will come due in the next few years, according to a report in The New York Times. Trump paid no income taxes in

Avalara has debuted a new compliance solution for the alcoholic beverage industry, AvaTax for Beverage Alcohol. The new product comes after Avalara bought Compli, which provides compliance services, technology and software to producers, distributors and importers of alcoholic beverages in the United States, last year. AvaTax Beverage Alcohol provides compliance solutions for wineries, distilleries, breweries,

The Internal Revenue Service is giving taxpayers and practitioners some extra time if they tried to file their returns on Sept. 15 through CCH Axcess, but were unable to do so because of a system outage. Earlier this month, Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting, which provides the CCH line of tax software, experienced an outage

Victims of Hurricane Sally have until mid-January to file various federal individual and business returns and make tax payments. The IRS is offering this relief to any area designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as qualifying for individual assistance. Currently this includes Baldwin, Escambia and Mobile Counties in Alabama, but taxpayers in localities qualifying

Lawyers for Donald Trump were met with skepticism from federal appeals court judges as they made their latest attempt to block New York prosecutors from getting their hands on his tax filings and other financial documents through a grand jury subpoena. “Are you asking us to change the way grand juries have done their work

President Trump issued a presidential memorandum on Aug. 8, 2020, directing the Secretary of the Treasury to permit employers to defer the employee portion of Social Security taxes between Sept. 1 and Dec. 31, 2020. On Aug. 28, 2020, the Treasury issued Notice 2020-65, providing a few details about how the deferral should work. The

A Panama sentencing; ‘subcontractor’ mess; fun with funds; and other highlights of recent tax cases. New York: Harald Joachim von der Goltz (a.k.a. H.J. von der Goltz, Johan von der Goltz, Jochen von der Goltz, “Tica” and “Tika”), of Needham, Massachusetts, and Key Biscayne, Florida, has been sentenced to four years in prison for wire

Recently, the Colorado Municipal League in tandem with businesses and the state’s Department of Revenue created a model ordinance on economic nexus and marketplace facilitator laws to help simplify sales tax within the state. Localities that adopt it will align with the state’s economic nexus threshold for their local taxes. Colorado has historically had self-collected

Tax season is a lot like baseball season, and both have been for the record books this year. We started 2020 with hopes of a solid season after a rebuilding year following the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Instead, this season threw us more curveballs, changeups, game delays and empty seats than any season in

The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday that lenders who make Paycheck Protection Program loans that are later forgiven under the CARES Act should not file information returns or furnish payee statements to report the forgiveness. In Announcement 2020-12, the IRS said that when all or a portion of the stated principal amount of a covered

Taxes, relief and partisanship; more than a nickel; a new pair; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers. Big surprises Taxbuzz (https://www.taxbuzz.com/blog): Unemployment benefits, taxes and the shock therein. Eide Bailly (https://www.eidebailly.com/taxblog): Understatement of the Week: “The death of Justice Ginsberg is setting up a very contentious period in Washington.” This contention only stands

The Internal Revenue Service released final regulations Monday to offer guidance on deductions for estates and non-grantor trusts, clarifying that certain deductions aren’t to be considered miscellaneous itemized deductions. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts of 2017 forbids individuals, estates and non-grantor trusts from claiming miscellaneous itemized deductions for any taxable year starting after Dec.

The U.S. Senate and Supreme Court are joining the House in not implementing President Donald Trump’s order allowing employers to defer payroll taxes owed by workers, Missouri Senator Roy Blunt said Tuesday. “My belief is we are not moving forward with the payroll tax deferral in the Senate,” Blunt, a member of the Senate GOP

A group of Senate Democrats introduced legislation Thursday to offer tax relief to individuals, businesses and states affected by catastrophic wildfires, such as the ones devastating California, Oregon and Washington State, along with other presidentially declared disasters, such as Hurricane Sally, which flooded parts of Gulf states like Florida, Alabama and Louisiana this week. Senate