Articles

Lessons Learned from the Tax Court: An Olive Branch in Tax Court

Leave a Comment / By Matt Metras, EA

“Everything is deductible until the audit” is an adage frequently repeated in the tax preparation industry. Generally, it’s mentioned tongue-in-cheek, but today’s taxpayer (and her tax pro boyfriend) may have taken it a bit too literally. Additionally, cutting corners may seem like a time-saving strategy in the moment, but the potential to backfire can’t be ignored. In this case, the taxpayer is about to learn things the hard way.

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Two Tax Systems: The Fundamental Divide That Shapes Every Client Strategy

Leave a Comment / By Kim Larsen

As tax professionals, we must recognize a profound truth that most Americans never fully grasp: The United States doesn’t have a single tax system, it has two fundamentally different systems operating in parallel. Understanding this dichotomy is perhaps the most important insight you can share with your clients, as it forms the foundation for virtually every advanced tax strategy.

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When Your Client’s Business Fails: Easing the Tax Pain

Leave a Comment / By Joshua Youngblood, EA, CTRS, CRETS, NTPI Fellow

The Internal Revenue Code provides several meaningful tools to ease the tax pain when a business fails. The problem is that many of these provisions require advance planning, timely action, or both. If you’re not looking for them, you’ll miss them, and your client will pay for it. In this article, we’ll look at net operating losses, Section 1244, worthless stock and bad debts, the hobby loss rules, cancellation of debt, and key opportunities to look back at prior years.

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Avoiding Life Insurance Tax Mishaps

Leave a Comment / By Peter J Reilly CPA

Life insurance is such a great income tax deal that it really disturbs me when people manage to create income tax nightmares with it. The build-up in value of a whole life policy is not currently taxed if the policy is properly structured. And even better, except for the insured, the proceeds are totally income tax free when paid because of the death either actual or clearly coming soon of the insured. Of course one of the greatest pieces of marketing genius ever was calling it life insurance, as it is in its pure form, actually death insurance. Here are some stories of life insurance tax nightmares and we’ll see if we can draw a moral from them.

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Remember, Influencers, the IRS Follows You Too!

Leave a Comment / By Timalyn Bowens, EA

The influencer marketing industry was able to grow during Covid as many advertisers had to adjust or cancel their marketing campaigns. This was because more people were sitting at home consuming content on social media. This new opportunity for smaller influencers has created a new group of taxpayers who need to know their new filing obligations. They’ll also be open to tax planning strategies that you have to help them reduce their tax liability.

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Hobby Loss Regulations And Loper Bright

Leave a Comment / By Peter J Reilly CPA

For me, the most exciting Tax Court opinion of 2025 was Judge Joseph Goeke’s supplement to his 2024 opinion in the case of Gary M. Schwarz. With a $1,851,878 tax deficiency, it is the largest hobby loss opinion since 2019. (The really big dollar cases tend to settle.)

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Consult, Don’t Convince: Turning Discovery Calls into Advisory Opportunities

Leave a Comment / By Marie Torossian, CPA

The most successful accountants aren’t the ones who pitch the hardest, they’re the ones who listen the most. When you ask better questions, you can diagnose problems that clients didn’t even know they had, which then helps us clarify outcomes instead of listing services. When we shift from “convincing” to “consulting,” discovery calls stop being “sales” conversations and start becoming advisory conversations. And advisory conversations naturally lead to advisory engagements.

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