Congress hates employees--that's a fact of life that a worker learns the hard way in the case of Alley v. Commissioner, (TC Summary Opinion 2006-4) that we discuss this week. Mr. Alley had a "creative" way of getting around the fact that Section 62 does not allow employee business deductions to be taken in computing adjusted gross income. Unfortunately for Mr. Alley, the Tax Court did not appreciate his creativity.

The case offers an option to look at the overall structure of where deductions are taken and the controlling provisions, so it useful beyond just the employee business expense context. The supporting materials can be downloaded here.

This podcast is sponsored by Leimberg Information Services.

This week we finally get a break from the Schedule D developments and move on to a new topic. We discuss simplified employee pensions, including the basic rules that apply to them, and the gotchas that clients tend to run into.

The materials are available from this link.

This podcast is sponsored by Leimberg Information Systems.

In what has become an unintended series of podcasts, we deal once again (and hopefully for the final time) with the IRS's revisions to the Schedule D instructions, and the subsequent "clarifications" (some might say abandonment) of those changes that have come out due to the storm of protests.

When last we left our story last Sunday, a solution acceptable to most on paper filings had been endorsed by the IRS. However, many questions remained on how efiling was impacted by this. This week we get a revised clarification that apparently will grant relief for efiling.

The materials with all the details can be found at this link.

This podcast is sponsored by Leimberg Information Services.

While highly unofficial at this point, the IRS has begun circulating a "clarification" of the Schedule D issue.

This special podcast discusses this email document and what it means for the upcoming tax season. Of special interest is its apparent lack of a solution to the problem for those filing returns via electronic means.

This podcast is sponsored by Leimberg Informaiton Services.

This week we look at the updated uniform definition of a child and other changes to the dependency exemption under Section 152 that Congress passed last year, as well as a technical correction Congress just passed that removes what had been a potentially significant change in the treatment of the exemption for divorced parents.

You can download the materials from here.

This podcast is being sponsored by Leimberg Information Services.