In a special podcast, we look at the just passed American Home Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, taking a detailed look at a few tax provisions in that bill of interest.  We look at the new, refundable first time homeowners credit, the property tax deduction for nonitemizers and the soon to start restrictions on the ability to get a full Section 121 exclusion if a property has not always been used as a principal residence that will apply to usage after January 1, 2009.

Note that this presentation is based on a brief review of the provisions that I've just completed based on what I believe to be the version of the bill that passed--but be sure to confirm these details, as well as watch for the required IRS guidance on a number of these matters.

The materials are available for download at http://www.edzollars.com/2008-07-28_Housing.pdf .

The podcast is sponsored by Leimberg Information Servicees, located on the web at http://www.leimbergservices.com .

In the past year we've talked a lot about the preparer standards and tax return positions.  This week, in the case of Wadsworth v. Commissioner, TC Memo 2008-171, we see a real world situation where a tax professional decided a position was not one that he could accept and what happened when the client decided to find another person who would take the requested position.  As you might expect, the taxpayers don't fare well in the eyes of the court when they attempt to claim reliance on the advice of the professional that did sign off on the position.

The materials for this week are available at http://www.edzollars.com/2008-07-28_Preparer_Shop.pdf .

The podcast is sponsored by Leimberg Information Services, located on the web at http://www.leimbergservices.com .

I gave a presentation at the offices of the Arizona Society of CPAs on the use of virtual machines to deal with the transition from Windows XP to Vista in a tax practice.  This podcast is based on that presentation, and it will be fairly useful to actually have the materials in front of you as you listen to this one.  The materials are at http://www.edzollars.com/Virtual_Machine.pdf.

The podcast is sponsored by Leimberg Information Services, located on the web at http://www.leimbergservices.com.

The IRS issued new temporary regulations that deal with start-up and corporate and partnership organization costs.  Interestingly enough, the new regulations now create an automatic election to expense/amortize all such costs, and treat problems related to the identification of costs or the proper year to begin amortization as accounting method issues.

The materials are located online at http://www.edzollars.com/2008-07-14_Section_195.pdf .

The podcast is sponsored by Leimberg Information Services, located at http://www.leimbergservices.com .

The IRS this week issued some relatively unsurprising guidance on the treatment of life insurance and an S corporation's accumulated adjustments account, so this week we'll look at the more general issues of the relevance (and lack of relevance) of AAA for an S corporation and its shareholders, and how the item is computed.

The materials are available at http://www.edzollars.com/2008-07-07_AAA.pdf .

The podcast is sponsored by Leimberg Information Services, located on the web at http://www.leimbergservices.com .