Loopholes

IRS MATH ERROR NOTICES – WHAT ARE THEY AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) mission statement is to "provide America's taxpayers top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities and enforce the law with integrity and fairness to all." The IRS provides forms and instructions, publications, robust web-based resources, and other tools to help taxpayers prepare and file their tax returns – an exercise relished by few. But what happens after you file your tax return? For many, the IRS accepts their tax returns as filed and processes them quickly, which is the end of the process. Others get "post-filing" correspondence from the IRS. The IRS may need additional information to process your tax return or, worse, may examine your tax return (asking you to document some or all parts of the return). There's a middle ground where the IRS adjusts your tax return without the "courtesy" of requesting documentation first. These are the math error notices.

Read on to discover more (including that it's not always about math).

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CURRENT EDITION

The Wild West of Employee Retention Credits (ERC): Outlaws, Deputies, and Cowboys

Dominique Molina, CPA MST CTS

Gather ’round, pardners! The Employee Retention Credit (ERC) has been the latest gold rush in the tax frontier, drawing business owners, tax deputies, and even a few sly outlaws. But as the dust settles, the IRS—our law keeping sheriff—is on the hunt for any who might’ve bent the rules. In this frontier of finance, knowing who’s who can keep you out of trouble as the IRS rounds up dubious claims.

Selected Techniques to Monetize Tax Attributes

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In the prior article “Tax Trends in M&A and What It Means for Your Clients,” we had discussed certain techniques to, e.g., maximize net operating loss (“NOL”) and interest expense deduction utilization in the context of M&A transactions. This article examines certain additional strategies to monetize expiring, latent, or otherwise disallowed tax attributes.

Do Those Tricks Really Work?

Peter J Reilly CPA

On the website for Axium Wealth, Charles Dombek tells us that: “Most CPAs are historians that tell their clients how much they make, how much they owe, when and where to file their taxes, and oftentimes how to write large checks at the last minute when you least expect.” When it comes to Axium, though: “We help clients recover dollars they unnecessarily pay in State and Federal income taxes.” Axium also helps clients diversify capital into off-market passive real estate and alternative investments. Before Axium, there was The Optimal-Financial Group LLC. Of course many of the readers of Think Outside The Tax Box are CPAs, or EAs or others who both help their clients be compliant and advise on ways to minimize their liability. When I was practicing I would call the things I might suggest my “bag of tricks.”