* As I usually begin each Wednesday BUZZ – be sure to check out Bruce the MISSOURI TAX GUY’s Sunday “Week In Perspective”. It is chock-a-block” with good stuff.
.
* Bruce discusses the various options available if you owe your “Uncle Sam” and can’t pay in “Simple Solutions to IRS Tax Debt Problems”.And click on the “tax debt help” link at the end of the first paragraph for a detailed overview of the Offer In Compromise program.
.
.
“ABC News is reporting that Wesley Snipes must now report to jail after his request for a new trial was denied by a federal judge.”
.
Meanwhile fellow tax cheat Chuck Rangel is merely chastised by Congress and told to pay the IRS what he owes.
.
.
“This year, I’m asking readers to submit, via email to charity@taxgirl.com, the name of a charity that most deserves a boost this year. Ideally, it would be one that you have supported financially over the past year or that you plan to support before the year end. In addition to the name, I’ll need the city where the charity is located, what it does and why you support the charity (personal stories would be great). A link to the web site and the best way to make a donation would be terrific: the more information that you can provide, the better.”
.
The deadline for nominations is November 30th at 11:59 pm.
.
.
“The Internal Revenue Service is looking to return $164.6 million in undelivered refund checks. A total of 111,893 taxpayers are due one or more refund checks that could not be delivered because of mailing address errors.”
.
Think you are one of the 111,893? “The best way for an individual to verify if she or he has a pending refund is going directly to IRS.gov and using the ‘Where’s My Refund?’ tool.”
.
And the best way to avoid this kind of problem is to request that your refund be directly deposited to your checking or savings account.
.
.
New Jersey is #5 at 8.97%, which kicks in at $500,000 of income for both Married and Single filers. NJ is tied with New York and Vermont, both also with a top rate of 8.97%. NY also kicks in at $500,000, but Vermont kicks in at $379,150. NJ is a “gross” tax, while New York, and I expect also Vermont, follow the federal with regards to allowable losses and deductions. Hawaii and Oregon top the list with 11%.
.
* The NATP’s TAXPRO WEEKLY email newsletter reports –
.
“A draft version of the 2010 Schedule SE is available on the IRS website. The revised form cleverly hides the deduction for a self-employed person’s health insurance as a subtraction to the Line 3 calculation. The deduction for health insurance for purposes of calculating self-employment tax is only permitted for 2010.”
.
.
* They say if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Well the Form 1040X (Amended US Income Tax Return) wasn’t broke. It had remained virtually unchanged in format for as long as I can remember because it worked just fine as it was – a three column form where one would list the original information, the changes, and the corrected information. Well for some unknown reason the IRS (not Congress – I could understand it if it was Congress because they are idiots) changed the almost perfect 1040X in January of 2010 – making it a one-column form.
.
Well now Trish McIntire tells us that the IRS has returned the 1040X back to its original format in her post “1040X Revised Again” at OUR TAXING TIMES.
.
The IRS forms department apparently had nothing to do but sit around and twiddle their thumbs – they couldn’t work on the 2010 tax forms or instructions yet because of the irresponsibility of Congress – so they revisited the 1040X.Well for whatever reason – I am glad to have the old 1040X back again.
.
.
* I join TAX PROF Paul Caron in welcoming a new blog to the “Tax Blogosphere” – TAX TIPS FOR POKER PLAYERS by tax attorney Brad Polizzano, aka TaxDood.
.
According to Brad –
.
“With this blog, I intend to highlight the many tax issues a poker player should be aware of in order to properly report gambling earnings.”
.
* Frequent TWTP commenter Peter Reilly discusses a few issues, including the regulation of tax preparers, in a post that is mainly about the Tax Court case concerning the crooks at Refunds Now Inc titled “Making A List And Checking It Twice” at PASSIVE ACTIVITIES AND OTHER OXYMORONS.
.
The post includes the following comment on the idiocy of Refund Anticipation Loans (RALs) -
.
“Refund anticipation loans are a natural outgrowth of certain types of tax preparation businesses, once you get past the underlying financial irrationality. Somebody has, in effect, made a series of small non-interest bearing loans to the federal government. They then pay a usurious rate to get paid back a couple of weeks sooner. I think there is a sub-branch of microeconomics that studies phenomena like this. I'm sure it's not called stupinomics, but that would be a good name for it.”
.
* Tonya Moreno shows us “How to File a Part-Year Resident State Tax Return: Instructions for filing multiple state tax returns after making a permanent move” at ABOUT.COM:TAX PLANNING US.
.
* I am sorry to hear that Dan Meyer is “Suspending Tick Marks”, a great blog on accounting and taxes (as I love to say – it has nothing to do with lyme disease).
.
I thank Dan for his support of TWTP over the years, especially the inclusion in his “12 Blogs of Christmas” (which will be missed this year).
.
Let’s hope that, as Dan says, it is only temporary and he returns to the “Tax Blogosphere” in mid-February of 2011. In the meantime I look forward to his comments on other tax blogs.
.
Due to the holiday I doubt there will be enough BUZZ for a complete installment this coming Saturday – but we shall see.
.
TTFN
No comments:
Post a Comment