{"id":211,"date":"2025-03-04T23:19:01","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T23:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/?p=211"},"modified":"2025-03-04T23:19:01","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T23:19:01","slug":"the-other-awards-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/the-other-awards-show\/","title":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Other\u00a0Awards Show"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last weekend, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences celebrated itself at the 2025 Academy Awards. Anora <\/em>filmmaker Sean Baker walked out the big winner, with Oscars for producing, writing, editing, and directing the year\u2019s Best Picture. He made history by becoming the first person to win four Oscars for the same film on the same night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IRS doesn\u2019t host anything quite so glamorous as the Oscars. There\u2019s no red carpet. There aren\u2019t any reporters asking who the stars are wearing (and for the IRS, it wouldn\u2019t be more glamorous than Kohl\u2019s). There aren\u2019t any all-night after-parties in Beverly Hills or Bel Air. But they do have their own awards list. Last week, the IRS released its\u00a02025 Dirty Dozen<\/a>\u00a0list: \u201cthe worst of the worst tax scams.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s Number One offender is the Kansas City Chiefs of tax scams\u2014love them or loathe them, they\u2019re always in the post-season. It\u2019s \u201cEmail Phishing Scams.\u201d And for those in the know, they\u2019re easy to avoid. If the IRS ever needs to talk with you, they\u2019ll reach out with good old snail mail. (Remember that?) They won\u2019t email you except in specific ongoing cases. And they won\u2019t call you or text you to say, \u201cYou owe us $31,000, and if you don\u2019t pay by tomorrow, we\u2019re calling the cops.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, countless people have fallen for scam emails and texts leading to identity theft. The IRS currently has a backlog of 500,000 cases taxing its resources. The average case takes nearly two years to resolve. And with the Service firing 7,000 employees last month, that process won\u2019t get any easier anytime soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s Number Two offender is new, and it\u2019s a timely warning in this age of social media disinformation. Specifically, the Service wants you to be aware of \u201cBad Social Media Advice.\u201d We know you\u2019re shocked to learn there\u2019s bad advice floating around online and in apps. But it\u2019s true! \u201cSocial media platforms routinely circulate inaccurate or misleading tax information, including on TikTok where people share wildly inaccurate tax advice.\u201d While we love to see spicy language from the IRS, \u201cwildly inaccurate\u201d is quite the understatement!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, social media claims are incomplete. Yes, you can deduct 100% of your new pickup truck, if<\/em> you use it 100% for business. (But you\u2019ll have to recapture whatever proceeds you get from selling it down the road.) Sometimes, claims are exaggerated\u2014the Augusta Rule won\u2019t make you rich. And sometimes, they\u2019re just plain garbage. No, you can\u2019t write off your spouse\u2019s vacation costs simply by making them a director of your company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the Dirty Dozen list includes suspects like fake charities, false fuel tax credits, an overhyped pandemic-era credit for sick leave and family leave, improper household employment taxes, and the \u201coverstated withholding scam.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, some of the previous offenders have dropped from the list. \u201cAbusive micro-captive insurance arrangements\u201d? Gone. \u201cImproper monetized installment sales\u201d? Out. Syndicated conservation easements, Malta pension plans? Gone and gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That doesn\u2019t mean the IRS isn\u2019t still watching out for those sorts of offenders. It\u2019s interesting, though, that this year\u2019s list moves away from complex strategies pitched towards higher-income filers and focuses more on outright scams targeting middle-American families. Apparently, there aren\u2019t a lot of billionaires getting their tax advice from TikTok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a really easy way to find out if the claims you see on social media are true. Just ask us! We\u2019ll probably get a good laugh out of them, too. 2025 is going to be a big year for tax planning, and there will be lots of misinformation circulating through the interwebs. Count on us to make sense of it all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The IRS doesn\u2019t host anything quite so glamorous as the Oscars. There\u2019s no red carpet. There aren\u2019t any reporters asking who the stars are wearing (and for the IRS, it wouldn\u2019t be more glamorous than Kohl\u2019s). There aren\u2019t any all-night after-parties in Beverly Hills or Bel Air. But they do have their own awards list. Last week, the IRS released its 2025 Dirty Dozen list: \u201cthe worst of the worst tax scams.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[50,4,9,6,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-taxes","8":"tag-irs","9":"tag-tax","10":"tag-tax-strategy","11":"tag-taxes","12":"tag-taxpolicy","13":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions\/213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}