Audit myths; credits and whistleblowers; details of reform; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

A pot to PTIN

• Rubin on Tax (http://rubinontax.floridatax.com): A look at the recent D.C. district court decision regarding the IRS and PTINs, that the Treasury has no ability to collect these fees and must rebate fees already collected. How about that? You’re going to get a refund check for a change.
• Taxable Talk (http://www.taxabletalk.com/): Additional note: “PTIN regulations came about at the same time as the IRS’s ill-fated efforts to regulate tax professionals.”

Suspended disbeliefs

• Dinesen Tax (http://dinesentax.com/blog): Wouldn’t It Be Nice Dep’t: “Having Negative Taxable Income Doesn’t Mean the Government Pays You Extra,” a.k.a. tax brackets running in reverse.
• Intuit Proconnect (http://taxprocenter.proconnect.intuit.com/): Ever tell a ghost story around a campfire? Jump in your seat during a horror movie? You knew those stories weren’t true but it didn’t matter. So here are “8 Myths Surrounding IRS Audits.”
• Procedurally Taxing (http://www.procedurallytaxing.com/): Of course your given client can pay someone else’s taxes, but there are circumstances where the IRS will pull the plug on such a gesture.

Where credit’s due

• HR Block (http://blogs.hrblock.com/): Reducing a carbon footprint with a sustainable home is good for our planet – and potentially very good for tax breaks.
• Summing It Up (http://blog.freedmaxick.com/summing-it-up): Quantify to qualify: a look at qualified research expenses (QREs) for qualified research activities (QRAs) when it comes to putting in for the Research Development Tax Credit.
• TaxProf (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/): Creighton University School of Law is looking for a visiting professor position in the areas of trusts and estates and, ideally, tax for the 2017-18 academic year.
• Houston Tax Attorney (http://www.irstaxtrouble.com/category/tax-blog/): A look at Ford Motor Co. v. United States, in which the court addressed whether a wholly owned corporation and its parent were the “same corporation” when computing the amount of interest the taxpayer owed. Note: The “same corporation” issue comes up a lot in interest-netting cases of continuous audits and seesaw owing-and-being-owed between taxpayers and the IRS.
• Federal Tax Crimes (http://federaltaxcrimes.blogspot.com/): Serious problems in a business can be like holes in clothes: Rarely do they get smaller on their own. How whistleblowers can evolve and be unwittingly cultivated, with a nod to the recent Caterpillar situation.

Best intentions

• Taxjar (http://blog.taxjar.com/): Craft fair and outdoor festival season is in full swing, and here’s how clients can handle sales tax as a festival vendor.
• Turbotax (http://Blog.turbotax.intuit.com): Hikes, canoes, crickets at night and bug bites on visiting day: Ah, summer camp. Regarding clients’ kids, are any of these precious memories deductible?
• The Income Tax School (http://www.theincometaxschool.com/blog/): It is true that only stupid people fall for phishing scams – until you do. The lure of these thieves can be strong, and here’s what to tell your clients (and yourself).
• Mauled Again (http://mauledagain.blogspot.com/): Wisest opening of the week: “One of the many reasons taxpayers should pay attention to whatever is being done when someone else computes their tax liabilities is that people make mistakes.” This concept hit especially close to home for one Pennsylvania woman who recently sued Kmart after being illegally charged sales tax on toilet paper.
• Sageworks (https://www.sageworks.com/blog/default.aspx): Relationships with some business clients, no matter what you do and how far you bend over, just keep creaking like a ramshackle old house. What can you do to strengthen those rafters?
• Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders (http://ritakeller.com/blog/): The gap between intention and implementation in business can yawn pretty wide. As summer conference season begins, how can you bring electrifying ideas back and actually put them in motion at your practice?

In the weeds

• Bloomberg BNA (http://www.bna.com/news/#!topic=istaxtype=isblogpost): Pass-through entities such as partnerships, LLCs and S Corps are one of the main components of Trump’s tax plan to tax these entities no more than 15 percent. Sounds simple. But what about taxes on the state level?
• Tax Vox (http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org): Trump’s reform plan, we’ve learned, is historically short in term of actual writing on actual paper. What kind of devil waits in the details? The Tax Policy Center takes a stab.
• AG Tax (http://agtax.ca/tax-tips-and-articles): Suddenly “Everything You Should Know Before Renouncing or Relinquishing Your U.S. Citizenship” might attract more readers than one might think.
• Tax Policy (http://taxfoundation.org/blog): “How High are Marijuana Taxes in Your State?” looks at growing public support for marijuana legalization, sales taxes and the obligatory wordplay in this subject’s headline. (We like to weed out the latter.)

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