Category Archives: *AskTaxMama Newsletter

AskTaxMama

Are Vehicle Donations Down?

subtitle: Why donations are down – especially vehicles Today TaxMama® wants to talk to you about charitable contributions, especially vehicle donations.       How are charitable donations of vehicles affected because of the new tax rules – effective as of December  2017, in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/irs-guidance-explains-rules-for-vehicle-donations ? The first tax […]

Slow Down! Ask First!

slow down!

       Today TaxMama® wants to talk to you about common errors people are making.       Dear Family, We have been answering hundreds of questions from taxpayers and tax professionals in the TaxMama® Forum.  https://iTaxMama.com/AskQuestion Oddly enough, people are upset with our answers. Why? Because they are asking questions AFTER they have […]

I am from the IRS and I am here to help you!

The IRS is Coming

I am from the IRS and I am here to help you! The intention, believe it or not, is to help small businesses that start to get behind on payroll tax deposits – before they get so far behind that it’s too late to save the business. The fact is, one of the most common reason that small businesses fail (other than ineptitude, bad planning and lack of funds) is that the owner thinks it’s OK to use the money withheld from employees’ paychecks to pay their own bills, as a short-term loan. It might work once. But payroll after payroll, the boss starts getting more behind. The funds don’t get paid back. The payroll taxes don’t ever get deposited. This affects the employees, trying to get their refunds. This often causes businesses to go under.

Last Minute New Tax Laws and Changes

    Today TaxMama® wants to give you some very big news about tax law changes. On December 20th President Trump signed into law the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act. Those 715 pages included two major tax bills – the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act (SECURE Act) and the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster […]

TaxMama’s TaxQuips 2019 Last Minute Tips and News

  Today TaxMama® wants to give you news and some steps to take before the end of 2019.        Dear Family, In the tax world, we spent this year trying to understand how to interpret all sorts of provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was passed at the last minute […]

New IRS Appointments – Important and Good!

My friends, this is great news. These are excellent appointments. Sure, they know how to handle audits and collections – work with the “Small Business” taxpayer. But better than that – they also understand the taxpayer’s problems and issues and would prefer to help them prosper – or return to prosperity – than to shut […]

TaxMama’s TaxQuips Solid Gold

  TaxMama® learns something from a question about the required minimum distributions. Got to tell you about this!   Dear Family, One of our readers asked about how to take a required minimum distribution from his IRA account, when the only asset in the  account was one one-kilo gold bar. In order for you to […]

Interactive tool on IRS.gov helps taxpayers get answers to their tax questions

Tax questions can pop up any time of the year. When people need answers, they should start with Interactive Tax Assistant on IRS.gov. It’s a tool that provides answers to a many tax law questions. The taxpayer enters answers to a series of questions and the tool gives them a response based on those answers. Here are […]

Proposed Tax Legislation

TaxMama® wants to bring some pending and potential tax legislation to your attention, today. Dear Family, On June 14th, I told you about the Taxpayer First Act that was waiting to be signed by the President. He signed that bill into law on July 1st. But there is still a lot that needs to be […]

Taxpayer First Act

As you all know, we have been waiting for two pieces of tax legislation from Congress this year:

a) An extender act to reinstate some of the tax provisions that expired at the end of 2017 (mortgage insurance deduction, tuition and fees deduction, etc.)
b) A law giving the IRS specific authority to require paid tax preparers to actually know something about the tax laws and procedures. (Did you know that 46 states and the District of Columbia have absolutely no licensing or knowledge requirements for paid tax preparers?)

Well, this Bill provides neither of those eagerly-awaited bits of legislation.  So what does the Taxpayer First Act do for you?