In the blogs: Subtle yet significant 

What clients like to believe; Tax Court fun; auditing REITs; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.

Subtle yet significant

• Tax Pro Center (https://accountants.intuit.com/taxprocenter/): The odd-looking but important verb “niching” does not, as wisdom has held, limit your practice’s income. Quite the opposite — and here’s how it can make your marketing bucks pay off, too. Also, seven reasons for you to hire new graduates.
• Meyers Brothers Kalicka (https://www.mbkcpa.com/insights): The debunking of nine accounting myths that clients seem to love include the relationship of budgeting and costs, how much financial reporting should drive decision-making and how “precise” doesn’t always equal “accurate.”
• Canopy (https://www.getcanopy.com/blog): Tough to argue with two big obstacles to your firm’s growth — a lot of competition and that most clients don’t know the difference between a good accountant and a bad one — but here are tips to get around these and other challenges.
• Armanino (https://www.armanino.com/articles/): What larger, savvy clients might be thinking about tax-managed services.
• TaxConnex (https://www.taxconnex.com/blog-): Ten “subtle yet significant” fees that can slip under e-commerce clients’ radar when they pick a sales tax compliance partner.
• University of Illinois Tax School Blog (https://taxschool.illinois.edu/blog/): What to remind them about tax credits for higher ed.
• Vertex (https://www.vertexinc.com/resources/resource-library/filter/field_asset_type/blog?page=0): The CPA talent shortage has attracted the attention of private equity firms, some of which are taking ownership stakes in midsized-to-large accounting firms. How these ownership changes may affect indirect tax services that the consulting arms of accounting firms provide to corporate tax departments.
• Virginia – U.S. Tax Talk (https://us-tax.org/about-this-us-tax-blog/): Four tax tips for Americans receiving a foreign inheritance.
• National Association of Tax Professionals (https://blog.natptax.com/): The IRS has proposed regs that would classify some charitable remainder annuity trusts as listed transactions. The regulations would bar taxpayers from pairing CRATs with single-premium immediate annuities to avoid recognizing all or a portion of the payments as taxable income or capital gains.
• Sikich (https://www.sikich.com/insights/): Congrats to Mary O’Connor, principal-in-charge of the firm’s forensic and valuation practice and recipient of this year’s American Society of Appraisers Lifetime Achievement Award.

Vast understatements

• Sovos (https://sovos.com/blog/): Among observations of global tax compliance now: “Governments will no longer rely on the antiquated way in which you file returns and give them period data … and they will tell you what you owe.” 
• Tax Vox (https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox): Often left unchecked by many a taxpayer, what’s to become of the Presidential Election Campaign Fund? 
• National Taxpayer Advocate (https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/taxnews-information/blogs-nta/): After receiving an IRS notice confirming the agency has received the victim’s paper return with the required Form 14039, the taxpayer may not hear from the IRS again for ages — it’s taking the agency about 22 months, on average, to work Identity Theft Victim Assistance cases. This means these taxpayers won’t receive their corresponding refunds for weeks after the IRS resolves their cases. “At the risk of vast understatement, 22 months is unacceptable.”
• Mauled Again (http://mauledagain.blogspot.com/): The blogger contends that the Republican Party continues in its efforts to reduce taxes paid by wealthy individuals and large corporations. One tactic is marketing tax cuts for the wealthy as tax cuts for people of low and moderate income. Another tactic is to restrict the ability of the IRS to audit wealthy individuals and large corporations.

The SCOTUS with the mostus

• The Tax Times (https://www.thetaxtimes.com): SCOTUS has affirmed a decision denying a tax refund to the estate of an owner of a building materials company that used a payout from his $3.5 million life insurance policy to purchase his shares in the business.
• Current Federal Tax Developments (https://www.currentfederaltaxdevelopments.com/): In Connelly v. United States, the Supreme Court also resolved inconsistent holdings in lower courts.
• Procedurally Taxing (https://www.taxnotes.com/procedurally-taxing): Three words come to the blogger’s mind when he thinks of four-plus decades of practice before the Tax Court. One of them is “fun.”

Coast to cost

• Withum (https://www.withum.com/resources/): Recent state updates include Tennessee’s new sourcing rules for specific services in relation to sales and use tax, North Carolina’s extending the deadline for partnerships to file an amended return for a retroactive PTET election for 2022, New Jersey prodding businesses to answer the state’s income tax questionnaires and Colorado temporarily cutting income tax rates.
• Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (https://itep.org/category/blog/): The best or worst of times recently for tax policy in two different states: Vermont becomes the first to require fossil fuels to contribute to a superfund for damages caused by climate change and for creation of climate adaptation projects (the new law is expected to face swift — and, we imagine, well-monied — legal challenges). Hawaii also enacted what are being described as the largest income tax cuts in its history.
• Taxjar (http://blog.taxjar.com/): Will more states start mandating sales tax on services soon?
• HBK (https://hbkcpa.com/insights/): A look at Ohio’s upcoming sales tax holiday (and its interesting exclusions).
• Wolters Kluwer (https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/solutions/tax-accounting-us/industry-news): REITs have become increasingly prevalent in the investment landscape, offering diverse assets and income streams. Financial statement auditors, though, must handle distinct challenges that come with auditing these entities.