ALERT: Momentum For Digital Dollars And Tax Expertise

On June 30, 2020 the US Senate Committee On Banking, Housing And Urban Affairs heard the testimony of the Chris Giancarlo. Mr. Giancarlo formerly served as Chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and now is Founder of the Digital Dollar Project. He made three important observations ‘”you should read” in his testimony to the US Senate:

1) America’s financial infrastructure has fallen behind times

2) The world is entering an era when things of value, such as money, contracts, stock certificates, land records, cultural assets like art and music, our votes and even our personal identities will be managed and stored in a secure way. While the first wave of the internet is known as the Internet Of Information, the new wave is called the Internet Of Value.

3) The third observation is that, unless we act, this coming wave of the Internet will place an enormous strain on our aged, centralized financial systems. If we do act, however, we can harness this wave of innovation for greater financial inclusion, capital and operational efficiency and economic growth for generations to come.

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California Assembly Bill AB-5 On Worker Status: Employees V Independent Contractors

Millions of taxpayers have not received their 2nd stimulus check who used online services. Their 2nd stimulus check may have been sent to the wrong bank account. The IRS apparently sent payments to more than thirteen million bank accounts that have been closed and are no longer valid.

The bank accounts were set up by tax companies like Turbo Tax, HR Block and Jackson Hewitt as temporary accounts used to deposit tax refunds for taxpayers who opted to have tax preparation fees taken out of their tax refunds. Furthermore, for taxpayers who used online tax services it may be too late to receive their $600 stimulus payment. The banks involved are required to send the payments received back to the IRS. Taxpayers who do not receive their 2nd round stimulus checks by the January 15, 2021 deadline will have to wait to receive their stimulus check as a tax credit when they file their 2020 tax return.

Go to the IRS Get My Payment link to see the status of your corona virus stimulus check.

Go to TaxConnections To Find A Tax Professional

Our members blogs are read by visitors from 210 countries and territories around the world.  We are amazed as we watch our members gain better visibility for their tax expertise and more authority in the marketplace. TaxConnections Bloggers have a unique style that resonates with our readers. We love the way our Tax Bloggers make the stories relatable to our readers. When you are marketing for new clients the secret is to make it less technical and more relatable. This week I want to give you all examples of our Tax Bloggers who had some of the most read blog posts over the past year:  Michael DeBlis, John Dundon, Barry Fowler, Jeffrey Kahn, Manasa Nadig, Peter Scalise, John Stancil, Hugo van Zyl and so many more.

If you are interested in enjoying a wider distribution of your tax blogs and reputation to our hundreds of thousands of readers, please join us today!

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If you have ever thought of writing a book or an eBook on a tax topic, please let us know. We are now accepting submissions from the tax community to promote their tax books/eBooks at www.taxconnections.com. It takes a great deal of effort to write a book/eBook on a tax topic and more effort to promote it to an interested audience. TaxConnections promotes our members books and publications to our built in interested readers of tax knowledge and expertise.

We promote our members publications exclusively, so if you are a current or budding author please join TaxConnections as a member today at https://www.taxconnections.com/membership/tax-professionals. The first ten tax professionals to register for an annual membership will have the option of being a quoted tax expert in a series of articles we Read More

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Your 501(c)(3) organization or church is in the midst of a large building campaign. Someone approaches you about making a large gift to the campaign. You don’t know the person, but he says that his grandparents were long-time members and supporters of your organization and he would like to honor them with a donation in their names. Sound too good to be true? Well, rein in your enthusiasm. That may just be the case. Before accepting any large gift, particularly one from someone you don’t know, you should exercise some due diligence.

Fraudulent Transfer may Result in a Clawback

A gift that is given to an organization or to individuals may be required to be returned if it can be shown that the transfer to your organization could be termed a fraudulent transfer Read More

The IRS has released its long-awaited Directory of Federal Tax Return Preparers, available at http://irs.treasury.gov/rpo/rpo.jsf. However, you should understand what this directory is, and is not.

But first, let’s talk about accessing the directory. By clicking on the link above, you will be taken to a page where you can enter the zip code for the area you wish to search and choose a distance from that zip code to search. You may optionally enter the last name of a preparer that you are searching for. Alternatively, you can omit the zip code and get a list of all preparers with the same last name. You may also choose which credential you wish to search for – CPA, Enrolled Agent, Attorney, or other. Read More

Lease and Rental Source of Income

Under the Software Regulations, income derived from the rental of a copyrighted article is sourced under Section 861(a)(4) and 862(a)(4).  As a general rule, rents and royalties are sourced to the place where the leased or licensed property is located, or where the lessee or licensee uses, or is entitled to use the property.

Leased property is used where it is physically located at the time of its use by the lessee. Therefore a computer program copy that is “rented” under a limited duration license should be considered to be used at the place where the computer that hosts the program is physically located while the lessee uses the program. If the copy resides on the lessee’s Read More

Bitcoin is a virtual currency also known as a cryptocurrency. It got that name because it uses cryptography to secure transactions. The good news is you don’t have to understand everything about it in order to use it. The bad news is you need to know how to receive and spend any bitcoin that you receive as a church, other organization, or individually. For purposes of this article, we will not go into the details of Bitcoin. The primary feature of it is that it is a decentralized “currency,” not controlled by any one central authority. It can’t tinker with monetary policy and cause a meltdown, nor can it be appropriated by a central authority – it is independent of any government.

In order to use Bitcoin, you must set up an account. There are miniscule fees involved and it is instant. If you want to spend it, you can spend it in Bitcoins or it can be redeemed. Read More

Partial Transfer of a Copyright Article: A Lease

If less than all of the benefits and burdens associated with a copyrighted article have passed to the transferee, the Software Regulations treat the transaction as a lease. Copyright articles can be leased as well as sold. Computer programs do not involve the risk of physical deterioration or physical destruction but they do have the risk of technological obsolescence. If this risk is assumed by the transferee, generally through a transaction in which the transferee makes a single payment in return for the right to use the program copy in perpetuity, then the transferee has assumed the risk of obsolescence and should be treated as the owner of the program copy. Read More

Application of the Title Passage Rule

As described in Part 5, the source of income generated by the sale or exchange of a copyrighted article often depends upon whether the sale took place within or without the United States. The place of sale is determined under the title passage rule. The Software Regulations recognizes that typical license agreements do not refer to a transfer of property and an electronic transfer is generally not accompanied by the usual indicia of the transfer of title.

There are important categories of copyrighted article transfers for DISC purposes: (i) a transfer of tangible property, such as a tangible medium in which the copyrighted article Read More

The Source of Income Analysis

Once it is determined that a computer program is a copyright article and thus “export property” for DISC purposes; then the issue is to determine whether the Software Program is being sold for use, consumption of disposition outside of the U.S. This analysis depends upon the “source of income” rules.

Generally under the current rules, the source of income from sales of property depends to varying extents upon both the type of property and whether the property sold or leased is “inventory property”.

Income from the lease of a copyright article must also fit this definition of non U.S. source Read More