Part of the new Democratic spending package will expand the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in an attempt to raise government revenues and fight inflation.

From collecting stamps and woodworking to crafting and quilting, people have all kinds of hobbies – and most of these hobbies will never turn a profit. For hobbies that do earn income, people should know that they must report it on their tax return. They should also be mindful that their hobby might be a business.

As the old saying goes: When something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Taxpayers with outstanding tax bills might be tempted by businesses who advertise and offer to help them reduce their tax debt. These businesses, often called Offer in Compromise mills, make huge claims about reducing unpaid taxes for pennies on the dollar. Unfortunately, these companies sometimes don't deliver and charge large fees.

For 2021 and 2022 only, businesses can generally deduct the full cost of business-related food and beverages purchased from a restaurant. Otherwise, the limit is usually 50% of the cost of the meal.

The Internal Revenue Service has announced an increase in the optional standard mileage rate for the final 6 months of 2022. Taxpayers may use the optional standard mileage rates to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business and certain other purposes.

For those of you that keep a mileage log, you need two totals to figure your taxes. One total business miles for the first six months of the year and one total business miles for the last six months of the year.

America enjoys levels of wealth and prosperity never before experienced in world history. For that, we can thank capitalism.

But capitalism is not doing so hot among the young. According to the latest Gallup survey on views about capitalism and socialism, more Americans aged 18 to 29 are positive about socialism (51 percent) than about capitalism (45 percent).

Replacing Your Social Security Card Just Got Easier

The Social Security Administration has just released a streamlined process for obtaining standard replacement Social Security Cards for lost cards; however,  if you need to make a change to your card (name change, etc.) you cannot use the new process.  

The Internal Revenue Service today kicked off the week with the 5th item on its 2022 annual Dirty Dozen scams warning list, with a sad reminder that criminals still use the COVID-19 pandemic to steal people's money and identity with bogus emails, social media posts and unexpected phone calls, among other things.

The Internal Revenue Service released its "Dirty Dozen" list for 2022, which includes potentially abusive arrangements that taxpayers should avoid.

The potentially abusive arrangements in this series focus on these four abusive transactions involve charitable remainder annuity trusts, Maltese individual retirement arrangements, foreign captive insurance, and monetized installment sales.

The Internal Revenue Service made an important enhancement to the Where's My Refund? online tool this week, introducing a new feature that allows taxpayers to check the status of their current tax year and two previous years' refunds.

Taxpayers can select any of the three most recent tax years to check their refund status. They'll need their Social Security number or ITIN, filing status and expected refund amount from the original filed tax return for the tax year they're checking.

Some identity thieves use taxpayers' information to file fraudulent tax returns. By requesting Identity Protection PINs from the Get an IP PIN tool on IRS.gov, taxpayers can prevent thieves from claiming tax refunds in their names. Seeing that it is free, this is a no brainer.

Understanding Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a method of raising money through websites by soliciting contributions from a large number of people. The contributions may be solicited to fund businesses, for charitable donations, or for gifts. In some cases, the money raised through crowdfunding is solicited by crowdfunding organizers on behalf of other people or businesses. In other cases, people establish crowdfunding campaigns to raise money for themselves or their businesses.