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Highlights of some of our favorite tax-related blogs from the past week.

Regs and those who love them

• The Tax Times: Give and It Might Hurt Dept.: A look at the IRS recently withdrawing proposed regulations that would have given nonprofits the option of reporting the names and Social Security numbers of donors giving $250 or more instead of providing contributors with written acknowledgements of gifts, “citing strong opposition over privacy concerns.” Not a bad consideration.
• Tax Policy: Belgium isn’t often on our minds unless the subject is chocolate, beautiful old cities or invasion routes in world wars, but the European Commission recently ruled that the Belgian Excess Profit Tax Exemption is illegal, meaning multinational corporations must now pony up hundreds of millions of euros in back taxes. That will certainly make their Ant Twerp.
• BNA blogs: Sometimes the timing is just right: A look at FASB efforts to simplify accounting for goodwill impairment and thus reduce costs.
• Rubin on Tax: Think all expenses of business litigation and litigation involving the production or collection of income or of property held for the production of income are created equal when it comes to deductions? Think again. A look at fraudulent conveyance litigation.
• Procedurally Taxing: Attorney and first-time guest blogger Phil Rosenkranz discusses an 8th Circuit case that “raises important bankruptcy issues concerning the ability to exempt certain tax benefits from a bankruptcy estate.”
• Bloomberg BNA Software: Discussions and Perspectives: Revelations from the Council on State Taxation’s recently released report, “Total State and Local Business Taxes: State-by-State Estimates for Fiscal Year 2014.” Among headline takeaways: businesses paid more than $688 billion in state and local taxes in FY2014, an increase of 2.2% from FY2013.

‘…Especially about the future’

• The Income Tax School: Chaos? Mayhem? Smooth sailing? Auntie Em wringing her hands in front of the white picket fence? Gaze in blogger Chuck McCabe’s crystal ball for a look ahead to the looming season.
• Tax Vox: More prognostications, from the president’s last SOTU, what’s coming this season re: ACA and what might not be smooth in 2016.
• Mauled Again: Will the Taxpayer Advocate problems report change the face of the IRS, specifically the service’s proposal to increase existing user fees and add new ones? “Is monetizing IRS forms, Web site pages and publications a sensible way of funding the IRS?”

Booked’im, Danno

• Federal Tax Crimes: A look at the recent case of an Hawaiian businessman who got 46 months in the hale pa’ ahao for tax obstruction and perjury, though “it is not clear what the guidelines calculation was.”
• Taxable Talk: A wizard he wasn’t. “Fraudster Tries Alchemy; Will Have 20 Years to Think That Over” examines the case of a New Jersey resident who “thought he had the perfect way of performing alchemy” by taking biodiesel fuel that was ineligible for two tax credits and “magically” transforming it into biodiesel fuel that was eligible. Perhaps he’ll have more luck waving his wand for the parole board.
• Due Diligence: In this week’s collection: “Chicago MD Goes to Prison for Medicare Fraud”; “Swiss Convict Tax Whistleblower in Absentia”; and “Whistleblower Gives Money to Charity.”
• Tax Analysts: Few really argue that this country must do something about gun violence. Blogger David Brunori, after a Washington state appellate court upheld Seattle’s excise tax on firearms and ammunition, argues that taxes will not stop the bullets.

What to remind them of

• The Wandering Tax Pro: What to tell them – in person or in your promo literature – about the advantages of a paid preparer over DIY filing software.
• Liberty Tax: What to remind them about regarding the tax-time A-plusses of student loans, from Authorized Savings Plans to 529s to Coverdells.
• John R. Dundon II EA: What to remind them about the benefits of tax-free compounding in employer-sponsored retirement plans and IRAs, among other vehicles.

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