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...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 10, 2011 | General |
Had you settled for a job just to have one? And have been able to finally find another job midyear? you may have overwithheld Social Security tax. If your pay from two or more different employers exceeds the Social Security withholding limit of $106,800, you can...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 10, 2011 | General |
Tax preparers with no credentials who pass IRS’ competency test will be able to prepare all types of tax returns, according to the the IRS. Even though the upcoming testing will only cover only the 1040 series of returns and their schedules, folks who pass the exam...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 10, 2011 | General |
A financial professional’s bad advice was grounds to waive the 60-day IRA rollover rule, IRS stated privately. At retirement, a couple transferred their 401(k) balances into IRAs. Their financial adviser stated that they should take the amounts in their IRAs and roll...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 10, 2011 | General |
The IRS will not consider further increases on filing extensions for partnerships, estates and trusts. The current five-month extensions will be granted, but nothing further. The rational is that individual partners, heirs and trust beneficiaries who requested filing...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 10, 2011 | General |
The Tax Court has ruled that a taxpayer’s poor investment decision doesn’t lead to a theft loss write-off. On a parishioner’s advice, a filer took funds from his IRA and bought stock in a company. The firm delayed issuing stock certificates to him, so he feared he had...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 4, 2011 | General |
I found this little article on the Chicago Bar Association website regarding how Cook County Property Taxes are calculated. Your Cook County real estate tax bill is the result of the assessed valuation of your real estate multiplied by an equalization factor and then...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 4, 2011 | General |
Cook County Illinois Having recently lost a property tax appeal, I was commiserating with a client whom had also failed in their appeal well. They had been informed that the foremost reason was that they were still paying their property tax bill and the county will...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 4, 2011 | General |
It seems it may be time to start looking like a stereotypical accountant. According to the Vision Council of America, approximately 75% of adults use some sort of vision correction. About 64% of them wear eyeglasses, and about 11% wear contact lenses, either...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 3, 2011 | General |
In government parlance, the “tax gap” is the difference between the taxes owed and what’s actually paid on time. In their most recent analysis, from 2001, the Internal Revenue Service estimated that only about 84 percent of federal taxes were voluntarily paid on time...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 2, 2011 | General |
According to Congress things are running smoothly and all is fine in the world. From a technical standpoint we left the recession in June of 2009. Unfortunately for many it just does not feel like it. In a recent discussion with a client, she stated that we were in...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 2, 2011 | General |
Those who have been non compliant of with their Qualified plans beware! The Internal Revenue Service has finally become more adept at identifying retirement plans that may violate tax laws, according to a new government report. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 2, 2011 | General |
The IRS test for tax preparers will not be as hard as the exam to become an enrolled agent, according to IRS. While they do not expect that the test will be overly easy (I do,look at any mass government exams), they note that it will be designed to ensure only a...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 1, 2011 | General |
Have you been receiving e-mails purporting to be from the IRS? Actually an employee here has received four in the past two weeks so they are out there again. I have copied the following from the IRS website stating what it is and how to deal with it. I hope this...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 28, 2011 | General |
I prepare the payroll for one of my clients along with my other responsibilities. As I was doing their weekly bank reconciliation I noticed that a bonus check had not been cashed. Now it wasn’t a huge amount, but it was a noticeable amount. So I contacted the...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 26, 2011 | General |
The IRS is increasing the standard mileage allowance upward for business vehicle usage. The new rate will be 55.5¢ a mile for the final six months of 2011, The mileage rate also increases for medical and moving expenses also increases by 4.5¢ to 23.5¢ a mile. But the...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 26, 2011 | General |
According to the Tax Court, a preparer’s omission of income from a return won’t excuse a penalty. A couple had hired a preparer fill out their complex return, they gave him more than 160 information returns. The final completed return was 115 pages long and showed...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 26, 2011 | General |
Apparently the IRS needs to do a better job of tracking its own employees’ compliance. According to Treasury inspectors the computer program used to detect workers who didn’t timely file or pay taxes or who understated their taxes, allowed over 100 employees who were...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 26, 2011 | General |
Internet Crime Complaint Center Highlights Of the complaints involving financial harm that were referred to law enforcement, the highest median dollar losses were • found among investment fraud ($3,200), overpayment fraud ($2,500), and advance fee fraud ($1,500)...
