Recent tax acts don’t change trader tax status (TTS), Section 475 MTM accounting, wash-sale losses on securities, or the tax treatment on financial products, including futures (Section 1256 contracts) and cryptocurrencies (intangible property). It’s helpful to consider IRS inflation adjustments in income and capital gains tax brackets, various income thresholds…

When Robert Merton, MIT finance professor and Economics Nobel laureate, speaks, we should listen. Fifty years ago, Merton, together with Fisher Black and Myron Scholes, developed the Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing formula. When these three finance geniuses derived their remarkable equation, there was no formal option market. These days, 39 million…

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the consumer price index (CPI) increased by 0.6% in August after rising 0.2% in July. You won’t just feel the impact of those boosts in your wallet—you’ll also see them on your tax forms. Those higher numbers push out deduction limitations and…

Garrett Brodeur, a tax attorney based in Washington, D.C., discusses the recently released proposed regulations for the cryptocurrency industry and their potential effect on digital asset transactions. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. David D. Stewart: Welcome to the podcast. I’m David Stewart, editor in chief of…

On Friday, September 22, 2023, a federal jury convicted Jack Fisher and James Sinnot of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aiding and assisting the filing of false tax returns, and subscribing to false tax returns. His original indictment brought increased scrutiny to the industry…

Hurricane Lee made a dramatic impact in the northeastern part of the United States earlier this year, the third major hurricane of the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season. Now, the IRS has announced tax relief for individuals and businesses affected by the storm in Maine and Massachusetts. Impacted Taxpayers The IRS…

The IRS announced tax relief for individuals and businesses affected by Hurricane Lee anywhere in Maine and Massachusetts. These taxpayers now have until Feb. 15, 2024, to file various federal individual and business tax returns and make tax payments. The IRS is offering relief to any area designated by the…

Two individuals have been charged with allegedly promoting and selling abusive trust tax shelters to clients across the country. The Department of Justice announced that a federal grand jury in Denver returned an indictment charging Timothy McPhee of Estes Park, Colorado, and Larry Conner of Frisco, Texas, with conspiring to…

What’s the return on new money spent for tax enforcement? Over the years, the IRS has answered that question with a range of estimates: 7 to 1, 9 to 1, 11 to 1. During a particularly bitter 1947 debate, the Truman administration insisted on a 20-1 ratio. But Congress was…

The IRS announced on September 14, 2023 a processing moratorium on new employee retention credit (ERC) claims. This means that it will not process any newly filed ERC claims until it works through its backlog of more than 600,000 claims, which it estimates will not occur until next year. The…