Using LinkedIn right; this year’s sales-tax holidays; alternative methods of apportionment; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Get appy

• Wolters Kluwer (http://news.cchgroup.com/): What are your biggest tax season challenges? How many of these tax season challenges are you facing? You’d think it’s the day-to-day potholes that get filled while the long-term craters go unattended. Wrong.
• Intuit Proconnect (https://proconnect.intuit.com/taxprocenter/): Your best bets for apps to help you maximize your time this season include the collaboration tool Slack and the writing helper Grammarly, among others.
• Income Tax School (http://www.theincometaxschool.com/blog/): LinkedIn never took the AOL path of aging: It remains a powerful social networking channel designed for business professionals. Here’s how your practice can use LinkedIn to best advantage.

What a save

• Taxbuzz (https://www.taxbuzz.com/blog): Whether your client is a landlord who owns multiple rental units or the owner of a single leased-out property, there’s a good chance that they rely on the services of others to keep properties maintained. Remind them that if any of those others are independent operators, they need to get into the habit of asking them to fill out a W-9.
• Taxjar (http://blog.taxjar.com/): This year’s sales tax holidays, in order of state.
• Tax Vox (https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox): The ongoing flap over tax refunds has once again highlighted a serious issue: Americans use tax withholding from their paychecks as a major savings tool — for many low-income filers, the preferred, and perhaps only, way to save. Looking at better options.
• Turbotax (https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/): You may have a few clients with this question around now: With income triggers for many in the five digits before having to file, why do the self-employed have to reach for a 1040 for just a few hundred bucks?
• Boyum Barenscheer (https://myboyum.com/blog/): A summary of the improved Child Tax Credit and the new credit for dependents.
• Taxable Talk (http://www.taxabletalk.com/): A look at the upcoming fourth edition of Tax Help for Gamblers.

Controlling fraud

• Bloomberg BNA ( https://www.bna.com/news/#!topic=taxtype=blogpostpage=1): The Virginia Supreme Court has just affirmed the judgment of the Circuit Court of Arlington County in Corp. Exec. Bd. v. Virginia Dept. of Taxn., denying the taxpayer, Corporate Executive Board, use of an alternative method of apportionment. This ruling provides guidance for taxpayers that wish to request to use an alternative method of apportionment and may find themselves in a position similar to CEB: appealing a decision.
• Procedurally Taxing (http://procedurallytaxing.com/): The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently issued an opinion in BASR Partnership, William F. Pettinati, Sr., Tax Matters Partner v. United States, in which the court determined whether a partnership was entitled to recover its reasonable litigation costs from the government when it submitted a nominal $1 qualified offer to the government in tax controversy litigation and subsequently prevailed at summary judgment.
• Summing It Up (http://blog.freedmaxick.com/summing-it-up): A look at the role of internal controls for detecting and eliminating employee fraud and abuse.
• Federal Tax Crimes (http://federaltaxcrimes.blogspot.com/): Another look at one of the blogger’s pet peeves: deliberate ignorance, a.k.a. willful blindness or conscious avoidance or the ostrich instruction.