eva rosenberg | TaxConnections

29 Dec 2022

TaxConnections Trusted Tax Advisors Awards: 2022/2023

According to research by psychologists, Trust is a central part of any human relationship. Trust is a belief that a person will act and behave in certain ways. Trust in a person means that you have a feeling of confidence and security that you can depend on a particular individual. Trust is the number one characteristic desired in a tax advisor. Trust is what everyone searches for when hiring a tax professional to handle your personal information. Trust is the assured reliance on the character, ability, strength or truth of someone or something. Given challenges in the world today, the most valuable asset you can offer is trust!

Trust takes time to build. Relationships take time to build; finding people you trust is what we search for in our most valued relationships. We are taking this time to identify the people we know who are trusted to do a great job for taxpayers. Taxes are complex today. It is challenging time for tax experts and taxpayers to understand the new tax rules and legislation thrust upon us each year. Taxpayers need access to trusted tax experts in the profession. For the purposes of this blog post, we have three goals:

Written by TaxConnections Admin | Posted in TaxConnections

30 Jun 2022

Employee vs Independent Contractor Rules In California

Since the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) in September of 2019, the rules regard who is and who is not an employee in this state have gotten ever more stringent – and confusing.

Why confusing? Because there was a very loud roar from several industries whose workers’ statuses were so severely compromised by this Bill.

I remember being at the 2019 CSEA Tax State Agency Liaison Meeting (STALM) in Sacramento after the bill was signed and one of the big concerns was truckers. Many of them work for the same company all year round (one “employer”) but own their own rigs and have always filed their tax returns using a Schedule C. Suddenly, if they had to be employees, there goes their federal deduction for the depreciation on the very expensive rig (costs approach $100,000 for some), the interest or lease fees, the fuel costs and all the other, legitimate out-of-pocket expenses they have in order to do their “jobs.”

Written by Eva Rosenberg | Posted in California Legislature • Employee vs Independent Contractor Rules • Enrolled Agent Study Course

15 Jun 2022

Business Licenses Often Overlooked – You Need Them

Every city, town and state has a variety of rules to regulate businesses operating within their bounds.

For instance, I live in the City of Angels. Within a 5 or 6-mile radius, in parts of Los Angeles (LA), you can be working in 5 or more distinct cities – West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Culver City, Malibu, and the City of Los Angeles – each with unique business license requirements. Have your cities and towns grown as complicated as ours?

Some people like to avoid the higher licensing costs in LA or other high-cost cities by establishing an address at a mail-box service with a street address (not a Post Office box) in a nearby area with lower business tax rates.

Unclear On The Concept

People think that by setting up business addresses in mail boxes, or by incorporating in tax-free states, they can avoid paying the higher taxes in their city, county or state.

There are two things wrong this concept.

Written by Eva Rosenberg | Posted in Take Enrolled Agent Exam

22 Dec 2021

Tax Professionals Who Kept On Giving… All Year Long. Meet Tax Bloggers Who Made Mighty Contributions During 2021!

Although this is the first year we have ever done this, I want to personally thank the tax professionals who have been giving, giving, and giving through their research and writing of their blogs all year long. We know tax bloggers put considerable time and effort into their blog posts as we have distributed blogs millions of time to our readers over the years. Our loyal site visitors arrive from all over the world; they follow our bloggers and this is how trust is built between our tax professional bloggers and the taxpayers who retain them for their expertise.

Here is a list of our members who have submitted great information in their blogs this year! Top Tax Bloggers are valuable because they take extra time to educate taxpayers around the world. There is a link to their tax blogs you can find by scrolling to the bottom of the right side column on the tax blog page where you can type in the bloggers name in the Blogger List Text Box. In the meantime, we encourage you to reach out, introduce yourself and thank the tax professional bloggers for giving, giving and giving throughout 2021.

We encourage all our readers to read their blogs posted this year!

TaxConnections Thanks Tax Professionals And Bloggers

(If you would like to post your blogs on www.taxconnections.com, please contact kat@taxconnections.com)

Join As A Tax Professional Member To Receive Blog Distribution

Written by Kat Jennings | Posted in Top Tax Bloggers • Top Tax Writers

24 Nov 2021

Navigating California Employee vs Independent Contractor

Navigating The California Employee vs Independent Contractor Maze

Since the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) in September of 2019, the rules regard who is and who is not an employee in this state have gotten ever more stringent – and confusing.

Why confusing? Because there was a very loud roar from several industries whose workers’ statuses were so severely compromised by this Bill.

Written by Eva Rosenberg | Posted in California Employee Vs Independent Contractor

19 Dec 2017

The Postcard Filing – A Naïve, Misguided Fantasy

The good news. President Trump Congress keeps telling you that taxpayers will be able to file on a postcard.

The bad news? Look at lines 3, 10, 11, and 12.
Your government is naïve. While this may be wish-fulfillment, it has no basis in practical reality.

It should be a required pre-requisite for all lawmakers to prepare their own income tax returns before they are permitted to write, vote on, or pass legislation. I loved that episode of the short-lived TV series Mr. Sterling, where Senator Bill Sterling (Josh Brolin) is grumbling, trying to prepare his own tax return. Better yet, they should spent two weeks volunteering, or observing, at a VITA site to see how their tax laws truly affect low-income people’s tax filings. Read More

Written by Eva Rosenberg | Posted in Tax Credit • Tax Filing • Tax Return

13 Oct 2017

Disastrous Tax Issues: A Review & Last Minute Details

Generally, whenever a major disaster strikes in the United States, the president issues a declaration – which triggers some special tax breaks and extensions for those in the disaster area.

In this case, President Trump has issued declarations for 9 disasters, since taking office. We know there will be one for Hurricane Irma. But, so far, he has not issued the usual declaration for the Los Angeles – La Tuna fires. (But that’s a whole other discussion.)

Written by Eva Rosenberg | Posted in Tax Breaks • Tax Filing • Tax Tips

07 Sep 2015

The Unknown Tax Comic – Part 18

A little tax humor with some tax jokes on TaxConnections Tax Blogs.

♦ Q: Who invented copper wire?
A: Two tax attorneys fighting over a penny.

♦ “65% of people say that cheating on your income tax is worse than cheating on your spouse. The other 35% were women.” (Jay Leno)

♦ A certain tax lawyer was quite wealthy and had a summer house in the country, to which he retreated for several weeks of the year. Each summer, the lawyer would invite a different friend of his to spend a week or two up at this place, which happened to be in a backwoods section of Maine. On one particular occasion, he invited a Czech friend to stay Read More

Written by The Unknown Tax Comic | Posted in Tax Humor • TaxConnections

20 Mar 2015

A Collection… The Humorous Side of Tax… (20)

Each year during tax season I post some of my favorite tax quotes and tax humor on TaxConnections. Enjoy!

♦ “The U.S. Senate is considering a bill that would tax Botox. When Botox users heard this, they were horrified. Well, I think they were horrified. It’s difficult to tell.” — Craig Ferguson

♦ Public Accounting is the only profession where you have many engagements going on, yet no one is getting married! — Peter J. Scalise, Practice Leader, Federal Credits & Incentives, Prager Metis CPAs

♦ Excellence is a good habit. But do not strive for perfection – it will prevent you from ever finishing anything. – Eva Rosenberg Read More

Written by Robert McKenzie | Posted in Tax Humor

15 Oct 2014

Leading Tax Educators Attracted To Global Tax Education Platform

One of the many exciting benefits of TaxConnections is the aggregation of the finest tax instructors in the industry to one global platform. With nearly 200 tax courses currently available on https://www.taxconnections.com/taxeducation with CPE or without CPE, and hundreds more in line to be uploaded on our tax education video platform, it is exciting to attract an increasing number of the very best tax educators around the world to TaxConnections. A group of experienced tax instructors are being assembled that are committed to promoting the very best tax education in the profession. TaxConnections is the catalyst bringing together an extraordinary group of tax educators in order to connect them to one worldwide platform.

During the year, we have interviewed many of tax instructors and are proud to introduce Read More

Written by Kat Jennings | Posted in TaxConnections

11 Jul 2014

The Unknown Tax Comic – Part 4

♦ Tax Accountant after reading a nursery rhyme to his child: “No, son. It wouldn’t be tax deductible when Little Bo Peep loses her sheep. But I like your thinking.”

♦ Excellence is a good habit. But do not strive for perfection – it will prevent you from ever finishing anything. – Eva Rosenberg

♦ Did you ever notice that when you put the words “The” and IRS” together, it spells “THEIRS” – Unknown

♦ A tax accountant and a lawyer were laying on a beach in Hawaii sipping mai tai’s. The lawyer started telling the tax accountant how he came to be there. “I had this downtown property in Memphis that caught fire and after the insurance paid off, I came here. “The tax Read More

Written by The Unknown Tax Comic | Posted in Tax Humor • TaxConnections

28 Jun 2014

The Unknown Tax Comic – Part 3

♦ What’s the difference between death and taxes?
Congress doesn’t meet every year to make death worse.

♦ And the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion?
Jail.

♦ A good tax return is like a good mystery novel. You follow the clues, make deductions, and arrive at a profitable conclusion. – Eva Rosenberg

♦ A tax accountant dies and goes to heaven (no, that’s not the joke). St. Peter, of course, is there, looking through the files and asking a few quick questions. “What sort of accountant were you?” “Oh, I was a CPA”, was the reply. “Name?” asks St. Pete. The accountant gives Read More

Written by The Unknown Tax Comic | Posted in Tax Humor • TaxConnections