Face-to-face with the taxman

Here are three of the week's top pieces of financial insight, gathered from around the web:

The Christian startup life

Tech entrepreneurs in the Midwest are hustling to transform cities into tech hubs with a Christian twist, said Kathryn Joyce at Wired. In Cincinnati, a small group of entrepreneurs started a lecture series at the fast-growing Crossroads Church about the "travails of startup life." The informal talks turned into workshops, the workshops became a business accelerator, and the accelerator spawned a venture capital firm, Ocean Capital. Now Ocean offers seed investments of $50,000 for company founders, as well as "personal and spiritual mentoring." The aim is to "instill the notion of Christian leadership" and help new companies "build into their DNA a healthier sense of balance." One goal: to teach founders that it's possible to start a tech company without "putting your life on hold for five to 10 years, and ruining your marriage and friendships."

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Face-to-face with the taxman

The IRS is coming knocking more often this year, said Andrew Keshner at MarketWatch​ — quite literally. As part of an effort to narrow the $441 billion gap between taxes owed and taxes paid, the agency expects to make "at least 800 face-to-face visits" beginning this month, with thousands more later in the year. IRS audits have been sliding for years, from a rate of 1.1 percent of individual tax returns in 2011 to 0.45 percent last year. The expected home visits will be focused primarily on "taxpayers who make at least $100,000 a year" who have not filed their taxes in a least a year. If the IRS does show up, a tax attorney recommends asking representatives to leave their contact information, and "then have a lawyer or accountant discuss the matter with the tax authority directly."

'Kiddie Tax' revision goes awry

Eliminated just in 2017, the complex "Kiddie Tax" is back, said Laura Saunders at The Wall Street Journal. First introduced in 1986, the rule set the tax rate on most children's income at the parents' rate. The 2017 tax overhaul got rid of the complex calculations the old Kiddie Tax required and made children's income subject to fixed trust tax rates. That minor revision proved disastrous for Gold Star families, parents with children receiving military survivors' benefits. For instance, "one widow of a Navy officer had a top rate of 12 percent on her income of less than $55,000, while her 6-year-old son had a top rate of 37 percent on his survivor's benefit of about $29,000." The previous rules will be reinstated for 2020.

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