As I‘ve previously shared with you, we frequently receive questions from clients asking what else they can deduct to lower taxable income. In the “bet you haven’t tried this one” category falls a recent tax court decision that allowed a taxpayer to deduct the costs of a sex change operation as a medical deduction.The taxpayer [...]

Driving in to the office today I was able to see clouds dumping snow on the local mountains. It was a good reminder that nature sometimes has an effect on our lives, and I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the tax incentive signed into law this week to help the Haitian earthquake victims. [...]

Albert Campbell was a whistlebower. He turned in his former employer, Lockheed Martin for defrauding the Federal government and ultimately received a reward of $8.75 Million under a law dating back to the civil war designed to catch contractors who were gouging Uncle Sam during the war effort. Good job, Albert!But in what can best [...]

Cell phones used for business purposes currently are one of the “Listed” assets that IRS has special rules for. If you use a cell phone for business, there are draconian rules which you are supposed to be following that force you to document all of your calls and make a distinction between business and personal [...]

Recent public announcements and internal memos to IRS agents give us an indication of some areas that will be scrutinized heavily in the coming months. Several areas to note:Tax returns for S corporations have been statistically shown to have a very high error rate – 68%. Look for increased audits on these entities focusing on [...]

Many Federal tax breaks expired on 12/31/2009 that were widely expected to be extended. Congress, primarily the Senate, failed to take up many provisions that we have taken as permanent. Consider how many of these will affect you:The AMT exemption amounts automatically roll back to pre-2001 levels. This will make many more of us subject [...]

Never let it be said that taxes are boring. William Halby, an attorney in New York, recently appeared before the tax court to argue that the $7,373 he spent on pornography and the $108,086 he spent on prostitutes over a two year period should be allowed as deductible medical expenses. Mr. Halby argued that these [...]

In the “if its good policy lets limit it” category:Our state legislature feels that in this economic climate, small businesses need an incentive to hire new employees. As a result, there is a new law that provides that if you own a small business that employed 20 or less employees as of 1/1/2009, and if [...]

I’ve been beating on the State of California a bit (it’s so easy) so I thought I would switch topics to our friends in Congress.In 2001, Congress enacted estate tax reform which provided that the estate (aka inheritance) tax would expire Jan 1, 2010 for one year only. I wrote about this topic in an [...]

In the “Are you kidding me?” department, yesterday I wrote about the Use Tax reporting requirements we are supposed to comply with. Recently the BOE has provided more guidance on sales taxes collected by different districts within California and how to handle it.Because of voted indebtedness, different areas within California have different sales tax rates. [...]