Well, it’s finally June, and now that Spring is in the air, our hearts and minds turn to thoughts of….Filing FBARS! In case you forgot, an FBAR is the form you must file by June 30 if you have signature authority over a foreign bank account. It is part of the government’s effort to [...]
After just finishing my Nth (too many to count) tax season, its time to sit back and hear the predictable chorus of how unfair our taxing regime is and how it punishes successful people and the middle class while rewarding the wealthy. In fact, a recent study of International tax systems by German economists [...]
Every tax filing season tax scams and frauds increase exponentially. I suspect that scammers pick up on overall IRS anxiety and use that to get victims to send them money more easily. This year the Treasury Inspector General has said that so far 2014 has seen the highest level of scammer activity ever, with [...]
Our Tax Season is in full swing now, and the entire staff is working themselves to death trying to keep up with the influx of projects. Regardless, nobody actually expects to die at work in a CPA firm. Other than clogging a few arteries with the ever present cookies and snacks that seem to [...]
Former US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner took a lot of heat during his confirmation hearings when it was revealed that he had not paid all of his income taxes in a timely manner. He was found to be short by almost $35,000, and blamed it on the Turbo Tax software that he [...]
Now that our tax season is ramping up, I thought it would be good to address the question that we get a lot: Will I get audited? Here’s the low down on IRS audits: Statistically overall audit rates have actually declined in the last couple years. Not only have IRS personnel been spread thin [...]
I was recently surprised to learn that the IRS’ website, www.IRS.GOV, has a new feature. You can type in some personal data and download transcripts of your own tax return. Wondering how well the government website designers had fulfilled this objective (call me a skeptic), I decided to give it a try. My first [...]
Wow, my last post was February? That’s a bit embarrassing as there has been a lot going on in the tax world. Our tax season last year was challenging to say the least, with twice as many tax clients being put on extension than normal. What with delays by Congress in modifying 2012 tax law [...]
The IRS has come out today and publicly warned taxpayers to be wary of phony IRS audit scams. They remind us that IRS never contacts taxpayers via email or social media to initiate an audit or to correspond with you directly regarding your account. Also: IRS never asks for personal info such as PIN [...]
What would you do? You are minding your own business, and out of the blue you get a call from someone who claims she is from IRS, that you are being audited, and that lucky for you your case has been assigned to her. Lucky because she knows all about you and wants [...]
