Home Office Deduction (Employees) – With the TCJA (Tax Cuts & Jobs Act) in late 2017.

(4) Home Office Deduction (Employees) – With the TCJA (Tax Cuts & Jobs Act) in late 2017, Congress reversed decades of tax policy effective for calendar 2018 and forward – namely, it suddenly denied (“suspended”) the home office deduction to W-2 employees who work from home at the direction of or “for the convenience of” their employers. Now, in 2021, we are still in the middle of a pandemic and the vast majority of “office job” employees who are lucky enough to still be employed are working from home, and not necessarily by choice. Yet no home office deduction is available to them under current (post-TCJA) law. Is this fair? Should the pre-2018 home office deduction for employees, limited though it was, be reinstated, at least for the duration of the pandemic? Alterna-tively, are there good reasons why it should never be reinstated, notwithstanding the current circumstances? Review the relevant “literature” on this topic, form your own conclusion(s), and then state and support your analysis. Note: This has nothing to do with self-employed (Schedule C) taxpayers, whose ability to claim a home office deduction in appropriate circumstances remains unchanged. (5) Medical Debt Forgiveness – Gift vs. Income – Medical bills, particularly for hospitalization, are so completely outrageous because the whole current system of medical costs has been created by robber-baron insurance companies. Those horrible people have all but completely taken control of the medical profession with their business model that assumes that every American should buy – or can afford to buy – their product (insurance) – and just too bad that so many people actually cannot afford it. One reaction to this sorry state of affairs is that certain luckier but benevolent hu-mans have taken it upon themselves to offer help to the uninsured – specifically, by way of forming not-for-profit entities for the purpose of buying up medical debt from bill collectors (for pennies on the dollar) and then “forgiving” it. (You may be familiar with John Oliver’s 2016 TV stunt to this effect – if not, you can find it on YouTube.) Assume that you have a client whose outrageous $75,000 uninsured – and un-payable – hospital bill was handled in this manner, meaning that it’s now gone. Study this phenomenon and form your own conclusion as to whether (i) this was a gift within the § 102(a) exclusion from gross income or, alternatively, (ii) this was a form of § 61(a)(12) gross income (subject to exclusion, if at all, only under § 108 – but that possibility is not within the scope of your assignment). Review the relevant “literature” and form your own conclusion as to what the firm’s position should be. Needless to say, your conclusion(s) should be well reasoned and well supported.Note: At least one of these entities states on its website that this kind of medical debt forgiveness is not taxable because it amounts to a tax-free gift. But you understand that such statements are not authoritative, but rather merely “feel good” opinions. You cannot rely on this kind of self-serving statement as support for your conclusion.