Most people give the IRS more credit for their alleged superpowers to sniff out every little tax mistake or fraud around the country than they deserve. What kind of all-seeing detection abilities does IRS have if they aren’t even able to detect tax cheats in their own midst?
Archive for February, 2018
Right Under Their Noses…
Posted by taxguru on February 18, 2018
Posted in cheats, IRS | Comments Off on Right Under Their Noses…
Retroactive 2017 Extenders
Posted by taxguru on February 13, 2018
How is this for another illustration of how screwed up things are in DC? As has been covered extensively, our royal rulers passed a huge and very complicated mess of a tax law near the end of December 2017 that takes effect in 2018. Then, after that, in February of 2018, they passed a law that retroactively, as of January 1, 2017, extends several tax breaks that had expired as of the end of 2016.
It’s like the popular story telling technique used in so many movies and TV shows nowadays, where everything is revealed in strange convoluted order. Doing things in normal chronological order seems to be too old fashioned for people in these here modern times.
These extensions are good news for the folks on the TaxBook discussion board, who have been panicking about what to do for their early filing clients and whether or not to charge them for amending returns to pick up the newly restored deductions that they couldn’t claim before now.
The University of Illinois Tax School has a good eight page PDF summary of this newest retroactive tax law that will affect many 2017 tax returns. I will post links to other useful explanations and summaries of this newest tax law, as I discover them around the ‘net.
How these retroactive Federal tax changes will affect State tax returns, many of which automatically conform with Federal law, is yet to be seen; but will be certain to add to the confusion of this current Tax Season.
Anyone in DC, Dimm or GOP, who claims that our tax system has been simplified is a 100% certifiable moron.
More info this retroactive legislation:
From Congress – H.R.1892 – Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018
From TheTaxBook – 6 page PDF summary
From The Tax Foundation: Budget Deal Would Retroactively Extend Several Expired Tax Provisions
From Intuit’s Tax Pro Center: Government Shutdown Averted and Tax Provisions Providing Tax Relief Passed
Posted in NewTaxLaws | Comments Off on Retroactive 2017 Extenders
Tax Scammers Are Multi-National
Posted by taxguru on February 8, 2018
Tax Season is also Scammers Season. A number of clients have told us about receiving phone calls from people claiming that the police were coming for them due to tax evasion charges. A few days ago, we received a couple of those calls, with a robotic voice and each with different Caller ID info, making the same claim. We didn’t waste time calling them back, but I did block their numbers. I’m sure, just as with many similarly reported scams, they would have demanded payment of the fictitious taxes via some kind of gift cards, which should be a dead tip-off to everyone that this is a huge con job.
Earlier today, I was watching the latest episode of The Checkout, a very funny consumer protection show from Australia. Illustrating that the phone scammers we have been fighting against here in the USA are pulling the exact same tricks in other countries, it has this segment showing a sweet little old lady purchasing iTunes gift cards in order to pay off a phony tax debt.
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Tax Guru - Ker$tetter Letter 