In spite of the fact that many aspects of the show are faked (we’re supposed to believe that the homeowners don’t know the design team is coming, yet everyone is dressed and waiting by the front door at 7:00 am), Sherry and I have been enjoying the ABC show “Extreme Home Makeover.”

The thought had obviously crossed my mind as to how the homeowners are taxed on the hundreds of thousands of dollars in improvements and furnishings they are given. This very issue has lead to some interesting discussions on Paul Caron’s blog, as well as an article in Newsweek.

As creative and aggressive as I am with designing tax savings strategies for real life people, I have to side with the group of tax pros who are skeptical of ABC’s attempt to classify all of the new stuff as tax free rental income, exploiting the long standing exemption for income generated by property rented for fewer than 15 days in a year.

My understanding is that, as with anything as lucrative as this, there are thousands of homeowners who apply to be on the show and to be selected is really no different than winning the lottery, and should be treated as gambling income for tax purposes. There could be some adjustments in the dollar values reported. I definitely wouldn’t report full retail values. However, to consider it as 100% tax free is beyond even an approach I would take. I wonder if ABC indemnifies the homeowners and will pay their additional taxes if they are audited and forced to include this income.

Blogger, the main tool I have been using to prepare this blog since I started it three and a half years ago, has just had a major redesign in its interface and the features it can support. I have been spending some time today experimenting with the underlying HTML code and directories. As a result, there have been changes to the URLs linking to the archives and to the individual postings. If the new and improved system works as advertised, they should be more stable. If you have previously obtained links that no longer work, you should check the archives from this opening page.

One new feature that Blogger now offers, which I have decided not to implement at this time, is commenting, where readers can post their comments to my blog. It’s not that I don’t want or appreciate reader feedback; but my time is already stretched too far as it is, without adding the task of having to police the postings. From the volume of hate mail I already receive because of my support of lower taxes, I can envision having to spend too much time keeping the comments clean to make it worthwhile. As can be seen by the small number of things I am currently able to post, compared to many more prolific bloggers, I’m lucky to be able to find the time to add these few.

This month’s webcast from IRS looks to be pretty interesting. It’s on the latest changes to the IRS audit procedures, which should be useful to tax practitioners as well as anyone who files a tax return. The live broadcast, via the web, is this coming Tuesday, May 11, from 2:00 to 3:00 pm EDT. If you miss the live feed, it will be posted to their archives.

I’ve only watched a few of these over the past few years because most of the topics have been about things I’m not interested in, such as e-filing. The ones I did watch were quite educational and I learned enough to make it well worth the time. This will be even easier for me this time, as long as my DirecWay Internet connection stays up, because it will be the first one I’ve watched since I set up multiple monitors on my main computer. I can have the webcast showing on one screen while doing other things on the other two monitors. Excellent multi-tasking opportunity.

Watching the webcast is free, and while they do offer one hour CPE credit, the price of $25 for that credit is not even close to reasonably priced. I’ve found much more economical CPE from such places as The CPE Store and PASSOnline; both of which I have used and been very satisfied with their offerings and service.