by Leif Jensen | Aug 2, 2011 | General |
The IRS is planning to expand its comprehensive employment tax audit program. Hurray… The process began last year, when they conducted the first batch of payroll tax examinations to fine-tune its return selection formulas and calculate the portion of the tax gap...
by Leif Jensen | Aug 2, 2011 | General |
Illinois Sales Tax Amnesty still available through October 15, 2011. You must file a separate paper Form ST-44, Illinois Use Tax Return, for each year (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010) that you have a use tax liability and write “Amnesty” in red on the...
by Leif Jensen | Aug 2, 2011 | General |
No waiver is allowed when a filer dies before completing a rollover. The Service privately rules. In this case, a retiree took a payout from his firm’s plan and died before he was able to complete a rollover to an IRA. The Revenue Service declined to waive the 60-day...
by Leif Jensen | Aug 2, 2011 | General |
The federal limits on the supply of imported sugar in the U.S. market are boosting prices for bakeries, candy makers and other small businesses, according to the president of the Sweetener Users Association, a beltway lobby group. The U.S. is currently the world’s...
by Leif Jensen | Aug 2, 2011 | General |
Financial troubles can now be an excuse for late payroll tax deposits, according to the Tax Court says. I am curious how this case would play in Illinois since this is a Florida case. Since the double impact of a recession and a significant decline in the region’s...
by Leif Jensen | Aug 2, 2011 | General |
The Service has developed a new audit guide for the business consulting industry. It instructs examiners on what issues to look for, such as bartering on the Internet, employee or independent contractor classification, and improper shifting of income to a related...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 25, 2011 | General |
I was having a discussion with a client regarding tax rates. I was sharing the limits for the top 10% of the US about $115,000 in Adjusted Gross Income (AGI). As the conversation went on we discussed the amount of taxes a couple pays. So we did a quick calculation...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 23, 2011 | General |
An outside payroll firms can be penalized for not turning over trust fund taxes, in a timely fashion, according to the IRS. It will assess the 100% penalty on employee leasing companies and the like that willfully fail to remit payroll taxes. Utilizing an outside...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 23, 2011 | General |
It appears that the IRS is aware that they exist! “Ghost Preparers” are those who charge fees for tax preparation but refuse to and don’t sign returns. To help track down these culprits, the IRS have sent mailings to taxpayers, who’s tax returns are somewhat...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 23, 2011 | General |
Having a large dollar volume of stock purchases does not always make you a trader in the eyes of the IRS. in this case a businessman who had 313 transactions for over $20 million in securities during a year; but he traded only on 29% of the available days and rarely...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 23, 2011 | General |
The IRS is investigating the paid preparers who continued to utilize their Social Security numbers or invalid pin last tax year instead of a valid tax preparer pin. The IRS has begun mailing letters this month to 100,000 or so of these preparers. The notices tell...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 22, 2011 | General |
According to Labor Department data; thirty percent of America’s jobless, 4.4 million people, have been out of work for more than a year (these are U3 statistics not U6, where the numbers will be higher). “It really is going to take a concentrated effort of employers...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 22, 2011 | General |
made the payroll tax payments as required. But, they had notified management that the payments were done for the 4th Qtr. With that person no longer there, I was working with the new bookkeeper and discovered the non-payment. After verifying that they were not done,...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 21, 2011 | General |
Fiscal 2011 bring with it the creation of the 1099-K. The IRS has created this form for reporting Merchant Card and Third-Party Payments made with your tax id (social security number or FEIN). Now before you say this obviously is not me, what they are referring to is...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 21, 2011 | General |
The IRS has been very busy creating new forms and altering old ones. For Tax Year 2011 the IRS has eliminated Cost of Goods Sold from the 1120S, you will not find it on page 2 under Schedule A. I am sighting this example since more of my business clients are...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 18, 2011 | General |
When we hear what the unemployment rate is we only hear about those whom have been actively looking for the last 4 weeks. This does not included those who have settled in underemployment, gave up, looking for more hours etc. This is referred to as the U3...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 18, 2011 | General |
According to the WSJ; the size of the country’s fastest-growing aspect of the population has increased 43% since 2000, and more than doubled since 1990, to 50.5 million last year, when Hispanics accounted for nearly one in six U.S. residents and for 23% of people...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 14, 2011 | General |
The Internal Revenue Service continues to fail in stopping many bogus claims for residential energy credits, according to Treasury inspectors. They found that the Service didn’t balk at credits taken on returns by people who didn’t own a residence, were under the age...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 10, 2011 | General |
A donor who didn’t meet the substantiation rules for a charitable contribution of a land easement pursuant to a settlement agreement he reached with a county to limit any future development of his property. The Tax Court denied his write-off because he did not get a...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 10, 2011 | General |
The IRS will not allow preparers take their fees from taxpayer refunds after all. This would put preparers at odds with their clients. We spend time with our clients trying to determine if they are withholding too much to begin with. If we expected to get our fees...
