Author: Tony Novak
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An accountant’s telephone call to IRS
subtitle: Why IRS representation can be slow and expensive Today I called the IRS Professional Hotline, waited 25 minutes, then got disconnected by live person picking up the call. (This is a common response in peak call time). I call back to the IRS Professional hotline, wait 20 minutes, reach a live gent, confirm taxpayer…
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My 2017 in two short paragraphs
The two big personal stories for me in 2017: #1 – Stress Handled I became stressed by the lack of respect for fact, truth, science, logic, law and education expressed in our everyday lives. I became stressed by the observation that other people abandoned traditional core values of charity, sharing, open doors, open borders, nondiscrimination,…
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How do you feel about 2018? (Nine reasons I’m feeling pretty good)
One of the tax writers I like to follow said today that she is “super worried about 2018”. I asked her what are her largest worries. While waiting for the response I thought about the same question and decide that I feel a lot better about 2018 than I did about 2017 at this time…
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Top 7 EASY Tax Saving Strategies for 2018
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 brought many changes and new opportunities to legally cut the amount of tax that we pay. Just as before, the largest savings are available to those who take deliberate tax saving actions designed to arrange their financial and legal affairs to lower taxes. The tax planning strategies considered…
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How to address the 2018 increase in small business corporation taxes
Effective January 1, 2018 the corporate tax rate for the first $50,000 of earned income jumps from 15% to 21%. That 6 percent increase translates to an additional $3,000 federal income tax due for 2018 for a small corporation. Thousands of small businesses are affected. Some are understandably irate that a tax law called the…
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Break free from Philadelphia tax notices
If you have no tax filing obligation with the City of Philadelphia but they continue to send your business the filing requirement notices anyway then you need to file a “Change Form“. In some cases you might even need to file the form a couple of times. The trigger for a tax filing is a…
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Outside sales representatives hit by a tax increase January 2018
If you are an employee with large unreimbursed business expenses then you either need to ask for a raise immediately of prepare for a potentially large tax increase. One of the most common types of occupations affected is outside sales representative however any employee in any occupation with work-related expenses would be affected the same way.…
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3 Small Business Accounting Predictions for 2018
1) The best accounting talent will work remotely. 2) Automation and artificial intelligence will continue to take over bookkeeping functions. 3) Multi-factor authentication will become mainstream for financial and accounting data. (these concepts adopted from an article in CPApracticeadvisor)
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Legislative History as Tax Authority: an Obsolete Concept?
Early in my professional tax career I learned about the concept of legislative history as tax authority. In fact a large part of any legal education is learning to evaluate evidence based on its qualitative characteristics, statutory consideration or local rules. In tax law this hierarchy of authority becomes the logical and legally supportable basis that…
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Terminology of Federal Income Taxes
Lately we’ve heard plenty of discussion about tax law. It seems especially common right now when tax terms have come up multiple times in casual conversation this past week at coffee, family dinner and email from a client. In some cases the terms are misused or misunderstood. Like many types of discussion, meaningful communication depends…