About the articles

How these articles are written, and what they are not

Every tax article on this site is written by an Enrolled Agent, dated, and checked against the sources it cites. It is general information about the tax code as it stood on that date. It is not advice about your return.

By Charles Trautman, EA · Reviewed November 2, 2026

Who writes them

Every article is written and edited by Charles Trautman, an Enrolled Agent at the Tax Shop in Lone Tree, Colorado. An Enrolled Agent is a federally licensed tax practitioner who may represent taxpayers before the IRS. The articles are written for readers, not for other preparers: they say plainly what the rule is, where it bites, and what to bring to an appointment. Some planning articles carry a guest author’s byline; those are reviewed before they are posted and dated the same way.

As of a date

Tax law is a moving target. Congress amends it, the IRS issues guidance, courts rule, and the dollar figures are reset every year for inflation. Each article carries the date it was last reviewed, under its title. What it says is the law as it was understood on that date, and nothing on this site is promised to be updated after it. Figures for the 2026 tax year are the ones the IRS has published where it has, and are marked (verify) or projected where it has not; a pass in December freezes them for the filing season.

General information, not advice

Nothing here is advice about your return. The articles describe how the rules work for people in general; your return depends on facts an article cannot know. The worked examples use round numbers and simplified situations to show how a rule operates. Your numbers will differ, and small differences change answers.

Reading an article, or writing to us through this site, does not make you a client of the Tax Shop. No preparer-client relationship exists until you have engaged the Tax Shop and it has accepted the engagement in writing.

Accuracy

The articles are written carefully and checked against the IRS and Colorado Department of Revenue sources they cite, but errors happen. If you find one, tell us which article and which sentence; it will be fixed in place. The articles are offered as they are, without warranty, and the Tax Shop is not responsible for decisions made on the strength of an article alone. Where something here matters to you, confirm it with a professional who knows your facts before you act.

Links

Articles link to IRS.gov, the Colorado Department of Revenue and other official pages for convenience. Those sites control their own content, and a link is not an endorsement of anything beyond the page it points to.

Need to Know Tax

Many of these articles also appear, in a reader’s edition, at needtoknowtax.com, the companion to the printed Income Tax 2026. Sponsored editions there carry a sponsor’s name on the cover and nowhere else; the sponsor had no part in writing the articles, which are the same for every reader.