Tax Planning

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The IRS at the Wedding

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You've all heard that April showers bring May flowers. That's fine and all, and it doesn't leave anything for the IRS unless you're a farmer or a florist. But June brings brides — young brides, old brides, blushing brides, even bridezillas. Now the IRS pays attention, because now the IRS gets to reach out for all sorts of extra taxes from the happy couple.

So, Mike and Sarah meet in college, fall in love, and get married. Maybe they host the big day at their college chapel. Maybe they get creative with the reception and throw a barbecue in a barn. What will the IRS think?

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An Apple a Day

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Back when you were a kid, your mom probably told you "an apple a day keeps the doctor away." Well here's something Mom didn't know — apparently, an apple a day keeps the tax man away, too. At least, that's the conclusion we might draw from recent Congressional hearings focused on Apple Incorporated and its strategies for avoiding taxes!

Last month, the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations conducted a hearing compellingly titled "Offshore Profit Shifting and the U.S. Tax Code — Part 2 (Apple Inc.)." The Committee graciously invited Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, to share how Apple avoids U.S. tax. (We can only imagine how delighted Cook was to receive the Committee's "invitation" — no doubt delivered on the same sort of elegant stationery you might use to announce a spring cotillion or send a "thank you" note to Grandmother.)

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Play Ball!

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The 2013 baseball season is barely a month old, and fans are already bickering over the first twists and turns. That's because rabid fans are never content to just watch a game. They have to discuss it — among friends, at the local tavern, and on talk radio. If a pop fly drops for a single behind Giants center fielder Angel Pagan, and no one is there to argue he should have caught it, does it really make any noise?

Statisticians have always delighted in analyzing baseball — some would say, analyzing it to death. So-called "sabermetricians" (followers of the Society of American Baseball Research, or SABR) pore over arcane stats like "batting average on balls in play" (a measure of how many balls in play against a pitcher go for hits, excluding home runs, used to

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New Audit Risk

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When it comes to audits, our friends at the IRS are interested in examining returns as accurately as possible. (No, they're not just interested in squeezing out more tax, and some audits actually result in refunds.) So the folks in the Small Business/Self-Employed area have compiled a series of Audit Technique Guides to help examiners with insight into issues and accounting methods unique to specific industries. As the IRS explains, "ATGs explain industry-specific examination techniques and include common, as well as unique, industry issues, business practices and terminology. Guidance is also provided on the examination of income, interview techniques and evaluation of evidence."

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New Issues for Splitting Community Property

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As usual, we would be foolish to expect our laws and regulations to always make sense or to keep up with the times.

Over the years there have been significant technical challenges to all traditionally married couples in community property states that want to file separate income tax returns. What is often overlooked though is that  registered domestic partners and same-sex married couples face those same reporting challenges plus additional crazy hurdles for proper tax reporting.

The IRS requires registered domestic partners and same-sex married couples to split their community income between their tax returns, even though they require you to file as single taxpayers (remember, we can't apply logic or common sense to any of these rules).

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Cruising in Style

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Cruising the high seas has become an increasingly popular way to travel, with over 14 million Americans cruising in 2010. Cruise fans love the convenience of unpacking just once and letting a floating resort take them from one glamorous destination to another. Cruise critics cringe at the stereotypical cheesy Vegas-style shows, 'round-the-clock buffets, and abbreviated shore excursions to the same chain retailers they can visit at their local mall. But all of us were thoroughly disgusted by this month's sordid tale of the Carnival Triumph, the mega-ship that lost power in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Four-hour waits for onion sandwiches sound bad enough from a ship that prides itself on a reputation for all you can eat. But just imagine 4,200 passengers and crew lining up to use 12 working toilets, and you'll immediately understand why observers dubbed the ship a "floating petri dish."

Carnival's spinmeisters clearly recognize a PR disaster when they see a towboat dragging it past them at 5 knots. They've agreed to give passengers a full refund for cruise and transportation costs, plus