Tax Season’s Not Over: Retroactive Tax Regs, Real-Time Decisions

With Bradley Burnett
CPA Trendlines Academy

For 2025 return preparation and 2026 tax planning, there’s a whole lot more on the plate than usual. New legislation, some of it retroactive and some prospective, is a real game-changer.

NEW CPE WEBINAR with BRADLEY BURNETT

“Between the Deadlines”
Critical 2025 and 2026 Federal Tax Developments Every Tax Pro Must Know
with Bradley Burnett

Thurs, April 2, 1-4 pm ET
Register here | Learn more

Some of the new legislation retroactively applicable to the beginning of 2025 is not particularly well defined with reporting guidance. Many new elections are available. Other past elections may be newly undone.

What’s the result of all of this? A huge quandary of choices.

Many preparers have already made choices on tax returns that have been filed. Perhaps some of those choices are regrettable. May those choices be undone?

In many cases, yes. In golf, we call it mulligans. In tax, we call it learning what to do and retroactively putting yourself in the right place at the right time.

We’ll show you exactly how to do it and how to make the best choices from this point forward in filing season.

Top Ten Highlights:

1. Superseding returns — Ins and outs, do’s and don’ts, major opportunities and pitfalls
2. OBBBA (newly effective tax legislation) cost recovery, new choices and timing traps
3. Business interest expense deduction — Best moves to make now (including possibly undoing elections)
4. R&D expenses — Whether, how and when to amend returns to generate handsome tax refunds — Who’s in and who’s out
5. Covid ERC — Explosion of new court cases re: refund eligibility, brand-new earth-shaking wrinkles on timing of wage expense reduction and income taxable income resulting from ERC refunds — Does the tax benefit rule really apply? Or is IRS blowing smoke?
6. Effect on preparer behavior of Murrin v. Comm. — a/k/a Is the statute of limitations for assessment really open forever?
7. What’s really happening re: IRS and paper check refunds and what to do about it (taxpayers on a starvation diet)
8. Treading water and stopping dam breaks re: IRS’s new first-time penalty abatement policy
9. Effect of new legislation on periods of limitation for claims for refund
10. All new IRS treacherous changes to Form 1065 and 1120-S