ABC Taxes, Tips & Tools

Dear read­ers,

In the last cou­ple of days I am being asked as to where my infor­ma­tion comes from (as in “I would like a cita­tion”).  The short answer is I get my infor­ma­tion from lots of places.  I am an enrolled agent.  Among other things I am required by my license to study my field of tax­a­tion and to stay cur­rent with respect to the field’s best prac­tices and pro­ce­dures.  The other short answer is I am not about to start foot­not­ing my free tax blog with cita­tions (although I am cer­tainly will­ing to per­form that ser­vice for my usual fees).

The longer answer is… The field of tax­a­tion is very broad, there­fore I do not *know* every­thing.  My area of spe­cial­iza­tion is small busi­ness and indi­vid­ual tax­a­tion, because most small busi­nesses pass their income through to their per­sonal tax returns.  As such I try to pick up on tid­bits related to small busi­ness. My clients often do think I *know* every­thing, so they will ask me about pay­roll, human resources, legal and finan­cial plan­ning issues.  When ever I am asked a ques­tion out­side my field or license I begin with a state­ment sim­i­lar to “I am NOT a ____ and if you really want an answer to this ques­tion you can rely on, on talk to a _____. That said this is what I have read, heard or oth­er­wise expe­ri­enced.”  There is a very large dis­claimer para­graph (in font and size sim­i­lar to the blog post itself) at the bot­tom of my posts and it is get­ting longer by the day.  A sim­i­lar dis­claimer accom­pa­nies all my com­mu­ni­ca­tions relat­ing to taxation.

When I write about one of these issues, in gen­eral, I am try­ing to look at it from the small busi­ness owner’s angle or indi­vid­ual taxpayer’s view point-afterall I have some expe­ri­ence with that point of view (don’t we all?). I get my infor­ma­tion from a vari­ety of sources, but gen­er­ally it is from experts and sources in the field. For exam­ple: Mindy Champ­man Esq. is a great source of employ­ment law, but there are oth­ers.  But I am not a lawyer, if you are seek­ing gen­uine legal advice, talk to a lawyer-not me; my blogs, such as they are can­not be relied upon for legal advice.  Sim­i­lar state­ments hold true for finan­cial plan­ning, human resource ques­tions and any other area out­side the field of tax­a­tion.  I am sure most pro­fes­sion­als can come up with cita­tions if you are will­ing to pay for them. I bring up law because fre­quently dis­cus­sion of tax­a­tion drifts over to the legal realm, and I fre­quently must remind peo­ple that I am not a lawyer and can­not give legal advice.

As for tax­a­tion the big grand poobah of all things tax-related is www.IRS.gov. The IRS cranks out a bunch of pub­li­ca­tions and notices.  They have a series of e-newsletters, which one can sub­scribe to.  As for offi­cial guid­ance http://www.irs.gov/taxpros/article/0%2C%2Cid=98137%2C00.html is the page to start with if you want to read the actual Inter­nal Rev­enue Code or Trea­sury (Tax) Code & other sources of offi­cial guidance. The IRS.gov’s web­site has a search fea­ture, which works well enough if you ask the right ques­tion.  Indi­vid­ual states also usu­ally have state depart­ments of rev­enue, which might be a start­ing point for all state related tax­a­tion issues.

In addi­tion to vis­it­ing the IRS web­site reg­u­larly, I also am a mem­ber of sev­eral pro­fes­sional soci­eties, which have their own newslet­ters and pub­li­ca­tions.  I also sub­scribe to sev­eral com­mer­cially avail­able newslet­ters.  I attend classes to improve my knowl­edge of tax­a­tion as I am required to do by my license. I have my text­books too.  The last sev­eral years I have taught classes in prepar­ing for the Spe­cial Enroll­ment Exam (SEE), which means once a year I spend sev­eral weeks catch­ing up and writ­ing on tax­a­tion out­side my bal­li­wick as well within as my area of spe­cial­iza­tion for the SEE class web­site.  In other words I spend a lot of time and money stay­ing current.

I have been blog­ging for about the last year-the act of writ­ing some­thing down has a way of illu­mi­nat­ing issues, as there is noth­ing like try­ing to explain some­thing to some­one else for clar­i­fy­ing things in your own mind.  The ideas for my blog posts come from my read­ers, my clients, my sources, and life in gen­eral.  If you are look­ing for where I might have “cut and pasted” an arti­cle from, you won’t find it. I research and then  I para­phrase, explain and oth­er­wise write my posts-I try to explain the sub­ject in plain eng­lish, from the view­point of peo­ple who might use the information. I am not even sure if I am good at it; I have good days and bad days like any­one.  BUT, at the bot­tom of each post I put in my dis­claimer. This blog is free, so for pur­poses of reliance it is worth exactly what you paid for it, which is nothing.

If find this infor­ma­tion use­ful, that is fine, but if you would like more…

Call us before the IRS calls you.  As always, small busi­ness ser­vices and tax­a­tion are our busi­ness.  If you need help with tax issues, or require other ser­vices,  Please give Art & Busi­ness Con­sult­ing a call.  We would love to engage you as a client.

The usual dis­claimers: Although ABC has made every effort to insure the accu­racy of Taxes, Tips and Tools, mis­in­for­ma­tion, dis­in­for­ma­tion, changes, mis­takes, typos and hack­ers hap­pen, there­fore Art & Busi­ness Con­sult­ing LLC takes no respon­si­bil­ity for any action taken or results based on the infor­ma­tion sup­plied here in. The con­tent of this blog gen­er­ally applies to busi­ness and indi­vid­ual tax­a­tion in the United States of Amer­ica.  Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice Cir­cu­lar 230 Dis­clo­sure:  As pro­vided for in Trea­sury reg­u­la­tions, advice (if any) relat­ing to fed­eral taxes that is con­tained in this com­mu­ni­ca­tion (includ­ing attach­ments) is not intended or writ­ten to be used, and can­not be used for the pur­pose of (1) avoid­ing penal­ties under the Inter­nal Rev­enue Code or (2) pro­mot­ing, mar­ket­ing or rec­om­mend­ing to another party any plan or arrange­ment address herein.  Art & Busi­ness Con­sult­ing LLC cur­rently does not have a cer­ti­fied pub­lic accoun­tant, human resource spe­cial­ist, cer­ti­fied finan­cial plan­ner or an attor­ney on staff; this infor­ma­tion is purely for edu­ca­tional pur­poses and not to be con­strued as legal or finan­cial advice. Art & Busi­ness Con­sult­ing LLC and its employ­ees, mem­bers and asso­ciates are not engage to prac­tice law; you always should dis­cuss legal mat­ters with your attor­ney before talk­ing to any­one else.