TAXPRO BUZZ

+ There was apparently a problem with my “settings”.  When I set up THE TAX PROFESSIONAL blog I failed to indicate that comments would be accepted from anybody.  As a result my TWTP follower Tom could not submit a comment at TTP.

Tom, instead, submitted the comment to my TWTP blog, and here it is –

Since your comment part isn't working on the other site for some reason I'll post my comment here - "Wonderful suggestions and I'm printing them out just to remind myself of these basics of life and work".

Thanks, Tom!

FYI – I have fixed the problem and now all comments should be accepted.  So if you tried to submit a comment on an earlier post and were unable to do so please try again – I welcome and encourage the comments of my fellow tax professionals. 

Remember, this blog is meant to be a kind of forum for discussion of issues relating to the business of preparing federal individual income tax returns.

+ We all know what a great resource the IRS website can be.

Trish McIntire reviews two methods of getting answers to tax questions at the IRS website in “Interactive IRS” at OUR TAXING TIMES.

+ Have you checked out my collection of “Tax Pro Forms, Schedules and Worksheets” yet?  You certainly can’t beat the price.

+ Kay Bell, the yellow rose of taxes, publishes a “Tax Carnival” at least once a month.

What is a “Blog Carnival”?  According to blogcarnival.com -

“Blog Carnivals typically collect together links pointing to blog articles on a particular topic. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every Monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.”

Kay describes her carnival as –

“A continuing compendium of tax-related postings, ranging from tax news to commentary on taxes (and the politics and politicos who create them) to filing tips and tax-saving strategies.”

“Tax Carnival #92: Tax Standard Time” is Kay’s latest offering.

If you write a tax blog you should consider submitting a post for inclusion in Kay’s Tax Carnival.

+ Russ Fox discusses Linzy v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2011-264 to remind us that “The Tax Court Expects a Tax Preparer to Know How to Substantiate Deductions” at TAXABLE TALK.

His bottom line –

“All tax professionals are held to a high standard if you end up at Tax Court: We are supposed to know the rules of substantiation. If we don’t, the Court isn’t going to be sympathetic at all.”

Along the way he mentions –

“There are some good unenrolled preparers (Robert Flach, for example), so being unenrolled isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

Thanks, Russ!

+ ACCOUNTING TODAY talks about the IRS’s online EITC Due Diligence training module, and explains the increased penalties for failing to exercise due diligence, in “IRS Offers Practitioner Training to Avoid EITC Penalty”.

+ The post “The New York State Task Force on Regulation of Tax Return Preparers” at my NJ TAX PRACTICE BLOG discusses proposed requirements for tax pros who want to prepare NYS income tax returns.

 

+ For those of you who are interested – 2011 W-2 and 1099-MISC forms (dot matrix compatible and software compatible) are now available at Staples – earlier than usual.  FYI – I spend Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve each year typing my clients’ (and my own) W-2s and 1099s.  

+ No surprise here – TAX GIRL Kelly Phillips Erb tells us “New W-2 Reporting Requirements for Health Care Confusing Taxpayers (Already)”, which provides a reminder for all of us who will soon be preparing W-2s.

“It is true that for the calendar and tax year 2011 employers must report employer-provided health care benefits for employees. The amount of benefits paid on your behalf will appear on your W-2 in 2012 as a report. It will not affect your taxable income for the calendar and tax year 2011.”

+ One of the many benefits of membership in NATP is its weekly email newsletter TAXPRO WEEKLY.

This week’s edition announced a new member benefit –

“New – NATP White Papers

Each day members call us with their toughest tax questions and we get them the answers they need. We often see a pattern of specific topics that tax pros would like to have a little more in-depth information on. For this reason, we have created white papers – a FREE member benefit. Our library has just begun and we are starting it off with these two documents:

•IRA and Qualified Plan Distributions to Trusts

•Small Employer Health Insurance Tax Credit

To access these white papers, go to the Media Center at Member to Member.”

If you are not already a member of NATP send me an email at rdftaxpro@yahoo.com (with NATP Membership in the subject line) and I will send you membership information.

+ A “tweet” (I am @rdftaxpro) led me to IRS Headliner Volume 315, which announced that “IRS Live Presents Updates from the Office of Professional Responsibilityand the Return Preparer Office”.

“The Internal Revenue Service presents an IRS Live webinar, Dec. 14 at 2 p.m. E.T. featuring updates from the IRS Office of Professional Responsibility and IRS Return Preparer Office.”

RDF