Following is an excerpt from my February Note from the AICPA Tax Executive Committee Chair. For complete note (for AICPA Tax Section members) – click here.
Given the number of TCJA changes, incomplete guidance and many other issues, I offer the following suggestions to share with your clients to help them avoid surprises later.

1. The TCJA is comprised of over 100 changes with little time for the IRS to issue guidance on all of them before 2018 returns are due.
2. A good amount of guidance has been issued, but much of it is transitional or interim. That means the guidance might only apply for 2018; a rule could apply differently in 2019.
3. The Joint Committee on Taxation’s Bluebook, which explains the TCJA, states over 70 times that technical corrections may be needed to achieve what legislators intended. For example, footnote 209 of the Bluebook states that a technical correction may be needed to reflect the intent that wages are not considered when calculating an excess business loss under the new Sec. 461(l).  Form 461, Limitation on Business Losses, used for measuring an excess business loss, though,  includes wages (the form follows the statute, as required).
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