Taxes

Lance Wallach is an expert on abusive tax transactions – in a good way. He warns people about them and then helps the ones who didn’t hear his warnings or did not take the warnings seriously enough. A couple of weeks ago he called me to encourage me to write about the Employment Retention Credit

As the debt limit drama plays out, Americans might be wondering if there is a better way to prevent defaulting on U.S. debts and perhaps inducing a global recession or depression. President Joe Biden, along with many commentators, has speculated that a president can bypass Congress by using the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. But

Terry Savage and I are collecting Social Security horror stories and posting them at my substack site, larrykotlikoff.substack.com. Sign up for free and take a read. If you have a story, send it to terry@terrysavage.com. I copy below a story we just received. I thought I’d heard it all. But here we have the case

Former IRS Commissioner David Kautter, now with RSM, discusses the recently released report on the feasibility of an IRS-run direct file program. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. David D. Stewart: Welcome to the podcast. I’m David Stewart, editor in chief of Tax Notes Today International. This week: cutting out the middleman.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and President Joe Biden reached an agreement over the weekend to limit spending for a small fraction of the federal government for a couple of years. But it would not come close to materially reducing annual deficits or slowing the growth of the national debt, which the Congressional Budget Office

A German lawyer widely regarded as the mastermind of a massive tax fraud scheme has been sentenced to an additional eight years and three months in jail. Hanno Berger had already received an eight-year jail sentence last December for his role in the cum-ex scheme, which has been called “the biggest tax theft in the

For decades, the idea of being subjected to an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit has inspired fear in the minds of taxpayers. For Black Americans, that fear has escalated due to the disproportionate number of audits completed for the demographic. The recent cash infusion of $80 billion dollars to the IRS has lawmakers and taxpayers

Taxpayer comments on the revisions to reg. section 1.861-20 in new proposed regs question rules that require using asset tax book values as a proxy for the payer’s earnings when remittances are made by a disregarded entity. Taxpayers noted the distortive effects of rules that use asset tax book values when assigning foreign taxes imposed

After a few days of speculation about the debt ceiling agreement between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, we finally have the details. The text of the bill—just 99 pages long—was released on Sunday and is already generating conversation. Here’s what you need to know. Timing The bill would suspend the debt limit

In case you didn’t notice, today, 5/29, is 529 Day. Many states are offering contests and other incentives for their 529 plans. If your state doesn’t have a promotion or if you miss it, your state may still provide a state tax break for contributing to their plan anytime. Should you? Let’s take a look

It is good that President Biden and Speaker McCarthy reached a US debt ceiling deal. If a compromise involves both sides being disappointed, this one appears to be successful. Some conservative Republicans are expressing frustration that the cuts were not much deeper, and there have been similar reactions coming from some Democrats. Speaker McCarthy announced

I write this article on the somber weekend of the Memorial Day Holiday. With the significance of honoring the fallen, it is important to remember how we can help these “Gold Star Families”, a term coined during World War I. During this weekend, I was reminded of the families of the fallen due to my

As an attorney that assists clients with audits, I see simple mistakes turn into huge problems. If you own a small business, you must follow record-keeping rules and if for no reason at all it is to save on attorney fees during an audit. I receive numerous questions in connection with an audit, including the

The frustration of business owners with their federal income tax payments is palpable. Though no major tax legislation has recently been passed, federal income tax payments are increasing dramatically. With rising inflation, workforce shortages, and supply chain woes, businesses are coming face to face with the prospects of retraction and survival versus expansion and entrepreneurship.

In the ever-evolving landscape of philanthropy, charities must adapt to new technologies to better engage with donors and support their missions. A recent addition to the toolkit is ChatGPT. Powered by advances in artificial intelligence and natural language processing, it is poised to revolutionize how charities assist donors in making effective giving decisions. Personalize Donor

Effective January 1, 2023 if you are age 70-1/2 or older, you can distribute up to $50,000 from your traditional IRA directly into a charitable remainder trust or gift annuity. The distribution will be excluded from your income, but if you are age 73 or older it will nonetheless count toward your Required Minimum Distribution.

Tax Notes contributing editors Robert Goulder and Joseph J. Thorndike examine the looming debt ceiling crisis and its likely effect on the IRS’s budget, all in five minutes. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Robert Goulder: You’ve heard the news by now: The federal government is just weeks away from hitting the

As if texting shorthand wasn’t confusing enough (IKR?), when you have stock options, restricted stock units, or an employee stock purchase plan, you are plunged into an alphabet soup of initialisms, acronyms, and jargon. Do you know NQSOs from ISOs? AMT from FICA or NIIT? What’s the FMV at option exercise? Can you sell company

Tax Notes reporter Andrea Muse provides an update on the state and federal lawsuits challenging Maryland’s digital advertising tax. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. David D. Stewart: Welcome to the podcast. I’m David Stewart, editor in chief of Tax Notes Today International. This week: getting crabby about digital ad taxes. As

It will probably be a long time before Congress redrafts section 482, but it’s never too early to propose improvements to the flawed statute that authorizes Treasury’s transfer pricing regulations. The predecessor of what now appears in section 482 of the Internal Revenue Code was first introduced as section 45 of the Revenue Act of