Category Archives: Bergen Bar Tax Bulletin

Written by Theodore M. David, Chair, Tax Law Committee

Current Items:

1) CLE Sting?
2) Tax by the Numbers

1) Scott Joplin was born November 24, 1860, in Linden, Texas, and died on April 1, 1917, at age 48, in New York City. He was the son of a slave. He is remembered as an American composer and pianist. He was called the “King of Ragtime” and composed more than 40 ragtime pieces, one ballet and two operas. One of his first and most famous written in 1899 was called the Maple Leaf Rag. Joplin considered Ragtime to be a form of classical music meant to be played in concert halls, but it found its way to honky tonks and smoky bars as well.

Some say his death in 1917 marked the end of the ragtime era. If I could hum a few bars of the Maple Leaf Rag to you right now you would immediately recognize it unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 50 or 60 years. Many people rediscovered Joplin’s music in the early 1970s when Robert Redford and Paul Newman starred in a classic “revenge” movie called “The Sting”. Now, I am sure lawyers who are reading this get daily notices of CLE seminars on every imaginable topic. I saw one the other day on dog law.

But I suggest that you put this bulletin down right at this moment, stop reading, and watch The Sting. This is especially true if you happen to be involved in criminal defense work. More so if you are advising a certain person about a sentencing to occur on July 11, 2024. The movie is set in 1936. Redford and Newman are professional grifters. They are looking to revenge a mob killing of a friend. The movie was inspired by the true life brothers Fred and Charlie Gondorff and the 1940s book called “The Big Con.” In the movie, an elaborate plot is contrived to fool Robert Shaw as Doyle Lonnegan, the mobster; yes, Shaw is the same guy from “Jaws” who didn’t do well there either. Very cautiously, Newman, as the older and wiser Henry Gondorff, councils Robert Redford, the young Johnny Hooker, that they must take their time in erecting an elaborate horse racing betting parlor.

Throughout the movie, Scott Joplin’s masterpieces are played in the background, including the Entertainer, which became a worldwide sensation. That’s another one you will know instantly from the first two notes. As the plot unwinds Redford gets more impatient all the time. Near busting, he turns to Newman and utters these words: “Why are we waiting? Those guys are not that smart,” referring to Shaw and his henchmen. Newman responds with the blockbuster: “Neither are we”.

This year, July 4 and July 11 are days that will be remembered. One will celebrate the birth of the United States, and the other the sentencing of a felon who used to be president of the United States. I’m not taking sides here, but from my work in criminal tax cases, after a conviction, the defendant has to take responsibility for his actions and show some remorse. Promising revenge, unless you happen to be Robert Redford or Paul Newman, will not work. Defense lawyers must get control of their clients. People do tend to make up stories that they may eventually actually believe. Others care little for the truth and deserve all that comes their way. Newman taught Redford to never insult the opposition, their intelligence or preparation, and to never refer to them as “thugs”.

The Sting was nominated for 10 and won 7 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. In 2005, the movie was preserved in the United States National Film Registry, being culturally historic and significant. In 1976, Scott Joplin was awarded a Pulitzer Prize posthumously for his ragtime compositions. The Sting should be allowed as CLE credit for lawyers as well.

2) To legitimize this bulletin as tax-related, I note the Social Security annual wage base for 2024 is $168,600. That’s an $8400 increase. The Social Security tax rate on employers and employees remains at 6.2%, and both pay the 1.45% Medicare tax on all compensation with no upper limit. The standard deduction for married couples is $29,200 and single taxpayers $14,600. The tax rates remain unchanged, but the brackets themselves are wider for 2024 due to inflation during the 2023 fiscal year. There, done. Now go watch the Sting.

Questions or Comments should be sent to: Theodore M. David, Chairman at Tdavidlawyer@gmail.com

Written by: Theodore M. David,
Chair Tax Law Committee

Current Items:

1) Inheritance Time Bombs
2) IRS Interest Rates
3) Everybody Gets One?

1. Boy, how things have changed. There was a time when I looked forward to getting the Journal of Taxation, Estate Planning and New Jersey and County Bar Journal magazines. I would read them cover to cover if for no reason other than to check to see whether or not a professional article of mine had been published. Some of them were kind enough to put your picture. Looking back at some of the esoteric topics I wonder if even tax lawyers ever got around to reading them. I made a habit of never rereading them myself. I would order reprints and send some to clients in another act of vanity. At least one of my earlier essays on the role of disclaimers in estate planning ended up being cited in New Jersey Statutes Annotated. I kept that particular volume in my office for years. My secretary kept track of all of those publications in folders that grew to overtake filing cabinets over my more than 40 years of practice. I can’t remember the last time I saw any of these magazines. I know the New Jersey Bar Journal still appears in my mailbox from time to time but the others seem to be long gone. All those professional magazines that I paid such attention to have been replaced by the AARP magazine. The latest addition has a fetching Brooke Shields on its cover with two articles of interest that I have in fact read. One is a lengthy discussion of how to live much longer. “Your Total Guide to Health Risks in your 70s.” If you are not quite there yet, it still has some pretty good advice: Eat well, exercise, have some decent relationships, lower your stress and visit a doctor from time to time. It reminded me of an article I did for the ALI – ABA Journal called “Can Lawyers Learn to be Happy.” The second got my attention immediately it was called “Inheritance Time Bombs, Six Ways to Avoid Family Feuds.” Now I didn’t write this nor am I cited so my picture is absent but it still may be the kind of thing you may want to consider sending to your clients or considering for yourself. So here they are: #1 The caregiver conundrum. Should you leave the house to the kid who moved home to be cook/chauffeur/ nurse’s aide/ therapist for the past decade? What about the other children? #2 False expectations. Your kids think you will be leaving them caviar and champagne but all they will be able to afford is barely pretzels and beer; #3 Trust issues. You want to leave money for all of your kids but are concerned about one of the youngest who has a fondness for blackjack tables and fast living; #4 The blended family problem. You want to leave your assets to your new spouse and children from a previous marriage not to your stepchildren. #5 A business problem. Only one child has been involved but you have two other kids. How can you create a plan to avoid the drama? #6 Skipping generations. Your kids seem capable and secure as adults so you decided to mostly bypass them and give to your grandkids instead. The author of the article is Laura Petrecca and she says older Americans hold nearly two thirds of the country’s wealth which is about $93 trillion in assets that could pass to younger generations. It’s time, she says, to work out your “battle plans” that can help you avert disaster. I’ll add that it may be time to hire an estate planning lawyer before the bombs start bursting in air. And to join AARP… it’s got some pretty good articles.

2. IRS has announced that interest rates will remain the same for the calendar quarter beginning July 1, 2024. For individuals the rate for overpayments and underpayments will remain at 8% per year, compounded daily.

3. My grandson loves to play soccer. I’ve watched him as a little boy run all over the field with boundless energy. Alex just turned 16 and is more serious about the game. But I remember fondly when he was perhaps five or six running in every direction at the same time. My son-in-law, God bless him, has been an organizer of teams, coach, assistant coach and a scout leader to boot. When the kids were done knocking themselves out one of the parents would bring muffins or cookies for all to share. When the season ended without any consideration to who had won how many games every player got a trophy. Russell made sure of that. Therapists these days say such affirmation is good for any kid’s ego. It helps them recognize that hard work pays off and can be rewarded. So coaches dig into their own pockets and use their imagination and Internet surfing ability to provide those prized trophies. The kids feel good, the parents are proud and the coaches enjoy every bit of it. I’ve been told over the years that once you work for IRS in any capacity you will always be treated as family. So it is with some dubious parental pride I am proud to report that the IRS has recently won a Certificate of Excellence and Accountability Award for the second year in a row. I don’t know whether they got a trophy but there was a ceremony held on May 16. The award is the highest form of recognition in the field of federal government financial management and performance reporting. I’m not sure exactly what that means but it sounds like it was trophy worthy to me.

Questions or Comments should be sent to:Tdavidlawyer@gmail.com

Written by: Theodore M. David, Chair, Tax Law Committee

Current Items:                                                             

1. IRS Field Trip? 
2. Time’s Almost Up                                                                    

1. There are two things that all kids look forward to during the regular school year. The first, of course, is the snow day. You may be old enough to remember when they used a blast or two on the fire warning siren to let you know it was okay to roll over and stay in bed. These days, everything is connected to your phone or Alexa in every room of your house. Worse yet, in many school systems, the kids are never released to go out to play in the snow but are responsible for online work. I thought this technological revolution was supposed to result in us having fun and more time for it? Read More

Written by Theodore M. David, Chair, Tax Law Committee

Current Items:
1) Who Was That Masked Man?
2) Lawyer Well Being?

1. I still have an antenna on my roof. I’m sure passers-bye in my neighborhood scratch their heads in wonder why have I not taken the thing down. Little do they know the reason is simple: It still works. I know even as you read this you’re in disbelief. We’ve grown so accustomed to cable and Internet that the thought that free television would arrive by a silly-looking metal contraption is hard to imagine. I was talking to a good friend of mine who was beside themselves about the cable company that was ripping him, like the rest of us, off. I simply said “George, why not use an antenna?” He looked at me as if I had two heads. An antenna? Now granted you will not get the hundred-plus stations and all the fancy other Internet apps either but you won’t pay a dime and should the cable go out in your neighborhood and your Internet fails to work real TV from your antenna may then make you quite happy. And you never know what is going to pop up on the screen. There is no guide button. Last Saturday for example out of nowhere the Lone Ranger and Tonto in black-and-white leaped out of my set. It’s amazing how quickly we can go back in time to the 1950s when Clayton Moore, who was actually Jack Carlton Moore born in Chicago, Illinois, donned the mask of the Lone Ranger and Harold Jay Smith an indigenous Canadian from the Mohawk tribe had been born in Ontario, Canada became Tonto. If you were around in the 50s you may have caught one of the 221 episodes of The Lone Ranger. You may know that Tonto named the Lone Ranger’s horse Silver when he spoke the sentence “like a mountain with snow, silver white” in describing a horse he and his partner Lone Ranger had found in a canyon suffering from injuries. Tonto did not seem to be at all disturbed by playing second fiddle to the Lone Ranger. They were a team that wandered about Texas doing good and chasing evil. Harold took the name Jay Silverheels but before he was Tonto, Harry Smith was actually a lacrosse player for the Toronto Tecumsehs. He also played on teams around the country as well as right here in Atlantic City. In 1938 he was second placed Golden Gloves Middleweight champion. By the way, he was inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1997. Tonto got to wear that suede fringed jacket that hippies thought they invented in the 60’s. The show ran from 1949 through 1957 on ABC. It was the highest-rated TV program in the early 1950s and ABC’s first true hit. Even as a kid I wondered how was it that he and his partner seemed so well-clothed and fed with no apparent source of income. Recently I learned it had to do with the Lone Ranger finding a silver mine which then financed his wanderings. So here was a hero risking his life without pay. I warn that the 50’s vocabulary as it was used on the Lone Ranger may offend these days where mere words can be so upsetting. Tonto was referred to as an “Indian” and at times “Injun.” Women were “gals” or “girls” and senior citizens were “old-timers.” And just about every female in every episode was a damsel in distress. The producers probably never heard of Yardville, New Jersey’s own straight-shooting Annie Oakley who like women today needed no male savior. But it was the 1950’s after all and a much different view of the world. They say the show was inspired by a real Texas Ranger named John Hughes in the old Wild West but there is also another possible inspiration in the more likely Bass Reeves the first black deputy marshal west of the Mississippi. Reeves wore disguises and worked with a Native American as a partner. In the show, it was always clear who the good guys and bad guys were. Where are the Lone Rangers these days? They are out there. Like some of the IRS criminal agents that I met along the way. They seemed to be working for a higher purpose. Chasing the bad guys. The FBI says there are about 4000 known gangsters in the states. Mostly centralized in New York and New Jersey. I remember there being less than 200 IRS criminal agents in all of New Jersey with a population of nine-plus million people. That’s 45,000 per agent. They must feel at times like well…the Lone Ranger. IRS announced recently that the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Division, Jim Lee, will retire effective April 6. He has led the criminal division since October 2020 with a staff of more than 3200 criminal investigation employees which includes 2200 special agents. Another Lone Ranger rides into the sunset Kemosabe. So who was that masked man? Hi-Yo Silver! Away!
   2). The New Jersey Lawyer magazine, No. 346, February 2024 caught my eye with a cover “Lawyer Well-Being.” In the course of my 50 years in law, I had published more than 52 professional articles. Frankly, some were so esoteric and boring as to make your eyes bleed. But the one I got the most feedback on was called “Can Lawyers Learn to be Happy”. That one may still be out there in cyberspace. But the article in this February journal about “Stress” written by the Hon. Kevin G Callahan JSC (ret) provides 20 suggestions that may make the job of lawyering a lot more tolerable. It is equally valuable for any stressed-out professional in any field. I won’t rattle off all twenty and they are all fairly obvious. It’s their application that is the problem. The judge says: find quiet time; remember your family and friends; check your spending habits; have a long-term plan or goal; don’t lawyer 24/7; change careers within the law if it is truly driving you crazy; avoid excesses; watch for signs of burnout; stay organized and if your new to the business of law find a mentor. I’ll add: Money won’t really make you happy; try to be more Lone Ranger than Perry Mason.

Gather ye Rosebuds while ye may
Old time is still a-flying
And this same Flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be a- dying.
Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Questions or Comments   should be sent to:

Theodore M. David                        

e-mail: Tdavidlawyer@gmail.com.

Written by: Theodore M. David, Chair, Tax Law Committee

Current Items:                                                                                    

1) Here Come the Love Letters   

2) Happy Filing Season

3) IRS Report Card       

1). Pat Boone did “Love Letters in the Sand.” A sweet reflection on the very essence of the Love Thrill. Now, I’ve seen grown men weep with a love letter from the IRS. What do they want? “ I’m from the IRS and I am here to help you??? A friend of mine, out of nowhere, got a letter with an enclosed check with no explanation at all. He loved it. But most don’t provide a free dinner and there is no BOGO. So, what do you do when a pandemic hits and tons of taxes are due? Perhaps stop the letters for a while. But wait, this just recently from the IRS: Due to the unprecedented effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the IRS temporarily suspended the mailing of automated reminders to pay overdue tax bills starting in February 2022. These reminders would have normally been issued as a follow-up after the initial notice. Although these reminder notices were suspended, the failure-to-pay penalty continues to accrue for taxpayers who did not fully pay their bills in response to the initial balance-due notice.

Given this unusual situation, the IRS is taking several steps in advance of resuming normal collection notices for tax years 2020 and 2021 to help taxpayers with unpaid tax bills, including some people who have not received a notice from the IRS in more than a year.

To help taxpayers as the normal processes resume, the IRS will be issuing a special reminder letter starting next month. The letter will alert the taxpayer of their liability, easy ways to pay and the amount of penalty relief, if applied. The IRS urges taxpayers who are unable to pay their full balance-due to visit IRS.gov/payments to make arrangements to resolve their bill.

2). So when can you file and get the 2023 tax refund you so justly deserve? The Internal Revenue Service today announced Monday, Jan. 29, 2024, as the official start date of the nation’s 2024 tax season when the agency will begin accepting and processing 2023 tax returns.

The IRS expects more than 128.7 million individual tax returns to be filed by the April 15, 2024, tax deadline.

Although the IRS will not officially begin accepting and processing tax returns until Jan. 29, people do not need to wait until then to work on their taxes if they’re using software companies or tax professionals. For example, most software companies accept electronic submissions and then hold them until the IRS is ready to begin processing later this month. IRS Free File will also be available on IRS.gov starting Jan. 12 in advance of the filing season opening. The IRS Direct File pilot will be rolled out in phases as final testing is completed and is expected to be widely available in mid-March to eligible taxpayers in the participating states.

Taxpayers will continue to see helpful changes at the IRS following ongoing transformation work. Building off the success of the 2023 tax season, which saw significant improvements following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the 2024 filing season will continue reflecting the focus on improving services to taxpayers.

“As our transformation efforts take hold, taxpayers will continue to see a marked improvement in IRS operations in the upcoming filing season,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. “IRS employees are working hard to make sure that new funding is used to help taxpayers by making the process of preparing and filing taxes easier.”

3). Every year IRS gets a report card showing how it is doing. Ed Koch started it all when he was Mayor of NYC. He’d asked, “So, how am I doing?” IRS latched on to the idea. National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins today released her 2023 Annual Report to Congress, describing 2023 as a year of “extraordinary transition for the IRS and therefore for taxpayers.”

The report credits the Internal Revenue Service with substantially improving taxpayer services and developing plans to transform the taxpayer experience in the coming years, but it identifies paper processing as an area of continuing weakness.

By law, the Advocate’s report is required to identify the 10 most serious problems taxpayers are experiencing in their dealings with the IRS and to make administrative and legislative recommendations to address those problems. Before cataloging taxpayer challenges, however, Collins praised the IRS for taking notable strides forward.

“Overall, the magnitude of successes exceeded the areas of weakness in 2023, and most metrics showed significant improvement from the depths of the [COVID-19] pandemic,” Collins wrote in the report’s preface. The report says the IRS virtually eliminated its backlog of unprocessed original individual income tax returns (Forms 1040) and substantially improved telephone service.

Many thanks to IRS for providing the stuff for this Bull this month, while I sit under a palm tree.

 

Written by: Theodore M. David, Chair, Tax Law Committee

Current Items:

1) Library Vig
2) Mileage Gig
3) Estimate Big

1) In the 1960s, the way I remember it, there was a loan shark in just about every town. It all started with Benjamin Franklin and his idea of spreading culture and knowledge through the idea of borrowing. Initially, you could only get part of the action if you bought it. That’s the way the Family worked. Eventually, any kid over five years old was automatically a member and it was free. You got a card that identified you as being in the acceptable group. The person who ran the local operation did not look like Tony Soprano instead it was a gray-haired lady with wire-rimmed glasses. She sat at a big wooden desk above, which was a sign in big letters: Be All You Can Be… Read. But my library card had been ink stamped with a dire warning: “Late fees of two cents per day will be enforced after the due date of this book.” I didn’t realize that society was grooming me for the zillion due dates that I would encounter as I crashed through adulthood. But I took that two-cent warning seriously. Looking back, I didn’t give it the real thought it deserved. The library was not interested in punishing me for forgetting to return a book. It was more interested in getting the book back so that it could be lent to the next person.

Now don’t fret, an overdue book charge will not destroy your credit rating. But there have been some real doozies. Take for instance, a history book written in German which was borrowed in 1667 by Col. Robert Walpole. It holds the Guinness world record for an open return and overdue library book from the Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, England. And a woman in Illinois paid the largest fine for an overdue library book when she returned in 2020, a book she had borrowed in 1955. She paid $345. At a library in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, a book entitled “The Cruise of the Esmeralda” was returned in December 2023. It was 120 years late. Piling up late fees can result in the suspension of borrowing privileges and, in extreme cases, legal action!

But I have recently heard of a library in Boston that took the measured step of creating a book return amnesty. Hundreds of books showed up to take advantage of the policy. One, in particular, turned out to be a priceless manuscript borrowed in 1972 with no late fees. All very interesting, you say, but what does this have to do with tax law and tax administration? Here it comes. The federal tax system has billions upon billions of dollars that are not being contributed to the system because taxpayers are afraid of the penalties associated with coming clean. In particular are simple nonfilers who imagine incredible penalties, including jail time for their social misbehaving. So they simply do not file every year. We have never had a federal tax amnesty. We are in desperate need of one. A well-reasoned plan to get the library books back on the shelf. That is to welcome taxpayers back into the tax system. They say those who have properly met their tax obligations will feel slighted that their neighbors are getting such tax relief. But waving tax due, penalties and reducing or eliminating interest in the long run results in a much healthier tax system. Just like your local library. BTW there is a policy IRS calls “voluntary compliance” but you have to pay up to be in that one. It’s not an Amnesty.

2) I was talking to a guy in a gas station about the supersized Ford 150 pickup truck he was driving. He said he needed to tow stuff around. These massive pieces of machinery represent the ultimate in design gone mad. He told me his truck gets 7 miles to the gallon. I thought that has got to hurt when gasoline was approaching almost 5 dollars per gallon. But then it dawned on me that he wasn’t paying the same amount for his gas as I was. And I don’t mean lining up at a Costco service center to shave off five cents per gallon. No, it’s trickier than that. He is being allowed a tax deduction of $.67 per mile traveled for business purposes. That’s the new rate for 2024 IRS now allows. So if those are business miles .67/mile or charitable miles .14/mile or medical miles.21/mile, the taxpayer gets a break on their tax return. Please note IRS says you cannot claim these expenses as unreimbursed employee business expenses. A tax lesson to remember when a huge gas hog passes you by.

3) A friendly reminder. Now that the banks are offering 4% and 5% interest rates on CDs, that newfound wealth may be subject to the requirement to file estimated taxes. A taxpayer can avoid the estimated tax penalty by paying estimates equal to 100% of last year’s taxes or 90% of this year’s taxes. The last estimate for 2023 is due 1/16/24. The Banks give, and the IRS takes away.

Questions or comments should be emailed to: Tdavidlawyer@gmail.com.

WRITTEN BY: THEODORE M. DAVID, ESQ., CHAIR, TAX LAW COMMITTEE

Current Items:                                                             

• Garage Sale 1099-K… Wha?
• IRS Interest Rates
• Digital Signatures                                                                    

1) Everybody likes going to a garage sale now and then. You’ve see that Antique Road Show where some lady bought a picture for four dollars and it turns out to be worth $50,000. Most times it’s just junk. But there are those who make a living at buying and selling what could otherwise be called “old crap.” Now IRS, always looking for an additional buck, knows damn well that those sellers are not properly reporting their transactions. So to make life even more complicated a recent addition to the tax law (The American Rescue Plan) requires that taxpayers send form 1099-K to alert the IRS of those sale transactions. According to the IRS: The ARP required third party settlement organizations (TPSOs), which include popular payment apps and online marketplaces, to report payments of more than $600 for the sale of goods and services on a Form 1099-K starting in 2022. These forms would go to the IRS and to taxpayers and would help taxpayers fill out their tax returns. Before the ARP, the reporting requirement applied only to the sale of goods and services involving more than 200 transactions per year totaling over $20,000.

Unable to deal with the tsunami of forms, the IRS temporarily delayed the new requirement last year.

Reporting requirements do not apply to personal transactions such as birthday or holiday gifts, sharing the cost of a car ride or meal, or paying a family member or another for a household bill. These payments are not taxable and should not be reported on Form 1099-K.

However, the given the complexity of the new provision, the large number of individual taxpayers affected and the need for stakeholders to have certainty with enough lead time, the IRS is planning for a threshold of $5,000 for tax year 2024 as part of a phase-in to implement the $600 reporting threshold enacted under the American Rescue Plan (ARP).The casual sale of goods and services, including selling used personal items like clothing, furniture and other household items for a loss, could generate a Form 1099-K for many people, even if the seller has no tax liability from those sales. That’s where your garage sale comes in. Granted most times people are paying a dollar or two for most items but when the sale transaction gets larger there is now this filing requirement which has been enacted. Whenever IRS resorts to having somebody send a form 1099 it is actually making taxpayers private IRS agents. Once the IRS gets its hands on this information it is a hop skip and a jump for it to compare the seller’s tax return with the 1099s that have been generated. The scary part about all this is there could be millions of transactions that would qualify under the new law and require taxpayers to file forms 1099-K! Needless to say with penalties for failing to do so as well. Think about that the next time you are browsing your neighbors junk pile they call a garage sale.

2)  The Internal Revenue Service has announced that interest rates will remain the same for the calendar quarter beginning Jan. 1, 2024.

For individuals, the rate for overpayments and underpayments will be 8% per year, compounded daily. Here is a complete list of the new rates:

• 8% for overpayments (payments made in excess of the amount owed), 7% for corporations.
• 5.5% for the portion of a corporate overpayment exceeding $10,000.
• 8% for underpayments (taxes owed but not fully paid).
• 10% for large corporate underpayments.

Under the Internal Revenue Code, the rate of interest is determined on a quarterly basis. For taxpayers other than corporations, the overpayment and underpayment rate is the federal short-term rate plus three percentage points.

3) Many forms filed with IRS have in the past required handwritten signatures by taxpayers. In slowly joining the 21^st century, IRS has begun accepting digital signatures.  The Internal Revenue Service has announced that it has extended certain temporary flexibilities. The acceptance of digital signatures is extended indefinitely until more robust technical solutions are deployed, and encrypted email when working directly with IRS personnel has been extended until October 31, 2025. Nice to see the IRS using the same sophisticated methods as the server did at your last restaurant meal.

Questions or comments should be sent to: tdavidlawyer@gmail.com

 

Written by: Theodore M. David, Chair, Tax Law Committee

Current Items:

1) Barbie Alternative
2) The Dreaded Direct File
3) Money into Enforcement

1) My old roommates from college started getting together a bunch of years ago to hang out for a weekend with our respective spouses. We call it the Big Chill. Maybe you saw the movie from 1983. The soundtrack included soul, R&B, and pop rock music from the ’60s and ’70s with the likes of Credence Clearwater Revival, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, the Rolling Stones, and Three Dog Night. It’s a Bar Bull-recommended flick. We’ve gathered in Milford, Pennsylvania, for many of these years. With a little bit of luck, the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers find us cozied up with Afghans and quilts snug in the living room. We no longer root from the stadium on the Banks of the Ole Raritan, beer sloshing all over are neatly pressed pants and jackets and ties. It is hard to imagine that a college football game was in fact, a dress-up occasion. I especially liked going to Princeton, where the men there dressed in 1920s skimmers for effect and women wore skirts and blouses.

You may remember the first collegiate football game was between dear old Rutgers and Princeton. As has become our custom, after dinner a movie is selected to be watched on a huge flat-screen TV. It seemed only fitting that this year’s selection should be Barbie. After all, we had actually lived through that bomb business in Oppenheimer. Barbie is not a kids’ movie. Though the kiddies will delight in seeing Barbie prance around in the overpriced pink outfits, their parents had once bought them for their own Barbie dolls. The pink Corvette and the pink Barbie Dream House are front and center, too. Pink is everywhere. The movie is really a commentary about the social mess we live in today. It’s got a playful way of showing just how silly we have been. It hurt to cough up $25 to rent from Prime, but all agreed it was worth it.

But if you can’t seem to sink your teeth into Barbie, rejoice that the IRS nationwide tax forums online have been launched and include 18 new self-study seminars that satisfy continuing education requirements in the categories of federal tax law, federal tax law update and ethics. You may want to pay attention to one called: “Circular 230: Ethics and Tax Practice: How You Can Stay Out of Trouble.” Best of all the forums are free. And there is nothing pink in any of them.

2) It won’t be long before the IRS takes a bite out of the tax preparation services both of accountants and lawyers with its innovative Direct File Project. The pilot program, which would allow taxpayers to file many types of tax returns directly with the IRS, is a pilot option projected to be available for eligible taxpayers in 13 states. New Jersey is not one of them. Accountants can relax for the time being. The project will begin during the 2024 filing season. So far, nine states have joined the effort. Arizona, California, Massachusetts and New York have decided to also work with the IRS to integrate their state taxes into the direct file pilot for filing season 2024. All of the states have been asked to join the project. Time to sell Intuit short?

3) In a recent announcement, the IRS said simply that: “Prior to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA 2022) more than a decade of budget cuts prevented the IRS from keeping pace with the increasingly complicated set of tools that the wealthiest taxpayers use to hide income and evade paying their tax share.” But you may recall that millions of dollars were funneled to the IRS to strengthen enforcement with that IRA. So now the IRS, with the extra dough, will seek enforcement focused on high-income, high-wealth individuals as well as ensuring large corporations pay taxes owed. Full employment of tax controversy lawyers seems guaranteed.

Questions or Comments should be sent to Tdavidlawyer@gmail.com.

Written by: Theodor M. David, Chair, Tax Law Committee

Current Items:                                                             

• No IRS Fun
• IRS Interest Rates
• Nickels and Dimes for Teachers

Boy, how things have changed. I started my career in the tax world as an IRS agent trained in Newark, New Jersey, and assigned to an IRS office on Ellison St., Paterson, NJ. It was one of the least sophisticated places you can imagine. The same door that led to a staircase to the second floor where the IRS offices were located made you walk past the barstools in the rather seedy bar downstairs. The big windows overlooking Ellison Street had gold lettering announcing Internal Revenue Service. I absolutely loved the place. It had a down-home environment and a certain esprit de corps among the agents who worked there. No one had cubicles everyone had the same government-issue gray metal desks in a big, wide open space. Those of us who were in the examination division also had a side chair designed for the poor taxpayers we dragged in for audit. I remember the light fixtures were oversized frosted glass bowls hanging from metal supports on the ceiling that reminded me of my days in grammar school at St. Joseph’s. But it was the people who worked there that really made the place special. For a relatively small office, we had representation in all three branches: examination, collection, and criminal division. I immediately started fantasizing about becoming an IRS special agent. They were the fraud investigators authorized to carry guns on special occasions and assigned to assist Secret Service should the need arise to protect the president. They were a pretty intense bunch. While I am sure they loved their work, it was serious going. On the other hand revenue officers assigned to the collection branch seemed to be having a damn good time. Way back then there were few women who became revenue officers. It was a tough job. These folks are unarmed and go out visiting taxpayers trying to wring additional dollars out of them for the taxes they owe. Whenever you see an IRS agent is assaulted or even killed the odds are it is a revenue officer. We’re talking ancient history now when IRS officers had the right to seize the taxpayer’s assets with little advance notice. These guys would leave the Ellison Street office on what amounted to a tax treasure hunt. I can recall one man carrying what looked like an oversized doctor’s bag with his various tools for snipping and cutting wires, locks and things of that sort. There was one story that circulated at our office that one unfortunate taxpayer called the police as his brand-new truck had been stolen right from his driveway. The police eventually got to us and the revenue officer assigned was pleased to tell them it was a federal seizure and that the truck would be offered for sale. Personally, I’ve always thought that this style of tax-enforced collection procedures produced the correct result. But like all things, many instances of abuse existed and led to the drawn-out procedures that now exist for revenue officers to complete the seizure process. Working on this side of things for the last forty years, it was my job to see to it that the seizure process was done correctly with perhaps as much difficulty as possible for IRS. Many revenue officers grew tired and frustrated and opted for retirement when the new statutes allowed collection due process hearings drastically taking the fun out of being a revenue officer. But it is about to get worse. As part of a larger transformation effort the IRS is now ending unannounced visits to taxpayers by agency revenue officers. They say the purpose is to reduce public confusion and enhance overall safety measures for taxpayers and employees. So a mailing advising that the revenue officer is coming must be given. Advance notice. Oh, Heck. I’m sure the guy with the doctor’s bag has already retired. If not this would certainly be the last straw.

• Interest rates that IRS charges for underpayments that is amounts taxpayers owe, as well as for overpayments for refunds that are due will rise to 8% for the quarter starting October 1.
• Demonstrating once again how teachers get the short end of the tax stick, the IRS issued a new school year reminder for educators. The maximum educator expense deduction is $300 for 2023. A whopping $50.00 increase. They can claim this miserable pittance even if they also claim the standard deduction. We should all be embarrassed.

Questions or Comments should be sent to:
Theodore M. David, Tdavidlawyer@gmail.com