18th Anniversary of the 21st Century Taxation Blog

Well, I'm amazed to be marking today the 18th anniversary of starting this 21st Century Taxation Blog - and that we are still in need of having a 21st century tax system that reflects how we live and do business today. 

Today, I'll note the 2025 IRS Dirty Dozen list which was a topic of a webinar I delivered today for CCH/CPELink. I delivered a webinar on the 2024 list last year. In diving deeper into the list, I went back to its start in 2001 when there were just 8 items. I like to share with others work that I find helpful to me, so I posted by list of the Dirty Dozen items since 2001.  I categorize them into 3 broad areas:

1. Tax Shelters and Questionable Tax Minimization Strategies Involving Taxpayer Funds

2. Thefts and Other Frauds and Scams Against Taxpayers, Employers and Tax Preparers (mostly bad actors trying to get your money)

3. Fakes - Improper Reporting and Preparer Fraud (mostly improper ways to get money from the government)

See my chart here - https://www.sjsu.edu/people/annette.nellen/website/DirtyDozenTable.pdf

icymi - other items I post for reference you might find useful are lists of all Treasury regulations, and other official guidance from the IRS going back to 2011. The relevant Code sections for each item are listed and if it ties to a specific piece of tax legislation. And there are links to get the full text.  This can be useful to see what has been issued or if someone tells you there was, for example, a 2022 revenue ruling on the topic but they don't recall the number.  See the 2025 list and links to past lists here - https://www.sjsu.edu/people/annette.nellen/website/2025regs.html. 

I also have a variety of tax items posted here - http://www.21stcenturytaxation.com/

Looking forward beyond18 years of tax blogging, I want to focus more on how to improve tax and budget literacy so people can better understand their own taxes, and also understand how the system works and how to get involved in asking good questions of elected officials about tax changes as well as the logic (or lack of logic) of some existing tax rules. Quick example, only about 3% of employees earn tip income which Congress is about to exclude from income taxes. Where are the 97% of employees who don't have this type of income? Why not ask for a higher standard deduction or reduce the lowest two tax brackets to 9% and 11% (rather than 10% and 12%) to benefit far more individuals?  [For more on the tip income deduction, see my post of 2/23/25]

My goal in creating this website and blog was to highlight how tax systems can be improved to reflect how we live and do business today and to reflect principles of good tax policy.

I very much welcome comments and suggestions.

Thank you for reading!