New nexus state; taxing cutting-edge (and really tiny) technology; refunds and good intentions; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Schoolin’ around

• Don’t Mess with Taxes (http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/): See you in September, above the line: a look at how teachers can still deduct classroom supplies.
• Solutions For CPA Firm Leaders (http://ritakeller.com/blog/): What does learning really mean inside an accounting firm? CPE, sure, but are partners cramming to get their credits right before the deadline actually learning anything? And what’s the downside to online CPE that never lets a younger accountant leave the laptop?
• TaxProf Blog (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/): Education opens doors but slams others, in this case of iron bars, shut. How a tax scammer who got three years had his appeal denied because his “legal education should have made him know better.” (He did, apparently, know enough to pry nearly a million bucks from the United States with one phony return.)

Commanding presence

• Summing It Up (http://blog.freedmaxick.com/summing-it-up): A state-by-state guide to registering for state sales tax.
• Taxjar (http://blog.taxjar.com/): Details on the new sales-tax nexus in Arizona — the first state to use a graduated approach for its economic nexus threshold.
• Tax Foundation (https://taxfoundation.org/blog): Additional evidence on the economic benefits of full expensing of investment has recently emerged, and two new studies exploit changes in the U.K. and Chinese tax codes and observe that movement towards a system of full, immediate expensing grows the economy and fosters a more productive business environment. (U.S. businesses can, for the moment and thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, deduct the cost of most assets in full from taxable income in the year they were purchased.)
• Tax Vox (https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox): Yes, states with an income tax link to the federal tax system to some degree, are useful in streamlining tax administration and compliance and making life a lot simpler for taxpayers. Yet conformity can put state income tax revenues at the mercy of federal policies — like the TCJA. How state income tax revenue would have changed if all the automatic changes prompted by the TCJA had flowed through to some state tax systems unaddressed.
• Avalara (https://www.avalara.com/us/en/blog): The internet of things (IoT) may employ technology thinner than a human hair and smaller than a speck of dust, but one connection links it firmly to the real world: As companies roll out IoT apps, they need to consider the tax implications.
• Wolters Kluwer (http://news.cchgroup.com/): The IRS has revised its controversial draft of the 2020 W-4, but wrinkles remain.

Spousing off

• Boyum Barenscheer (https://myboyum.com/blog/): Love Me, Love My Tax Shenanigans Dept.: When a married couple files a joint tax return, each spouse is “jointly and severally” liable for the full amount of tax on the couple’s combined income. The IRS can come after either spouse to collect the entire tax, not just the part that’s attributed to one spouse or the other. (Now you’ll see a fight….)
• Mauled Again (http://mauledagain.blogspot.com/): Refunds are at the center, if not the heart, of many promises to repay private loans. The case of somebody who made good on $3,500 when Uncle Sam delivered.