Posted by taxguru on August 29, 2015
IRS must say if White House sought taxpayers’ information: Judge
This judge shouldn’t hold her breath waiting for cooperation from IRS. They have been as helpful and honest as Hitlery Clinton has been with the multiple investigations into her crimes.
Posted by taxguru on August 26, 2015
While everyone knows that is impossible, that’s Trump’s goal, according to this clip from yesterday’s episode of NewsBusted.
Posted in humor, NewsBusted, Trump, video | Comments Off on Can the IRC be made Idiot-Proof?
Posted by taxguru on August 24, 2015
As is often the case with the bozos in Congress, they love to slip various tax items into unrelated legislation. Such was the case with the recently signed Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015.
As part of this new law, some long running due dates for certain kinds of tax returns will be changing in the next year.
The ones that will likely be most widely felt among the practitioner community are:
Partnerships – Form 1065 (or an extension request) will be due a month earlier than previously, March 15 instead of April 15. This is no surprise and continues a recent trend to give some distance in time between the due dates of tax returns for pass-through entities and the due dates for individual tax returns (1040s) so that we aren’t scrambling to do all of the tax returns on the same day.
C Corporations – Form 1120 (or an extension request) will be due four and a half months after the end of the tax year, instead of the long standing three and a half month timeframe. However, there is an odd exception in the law just for corporations with tax years ending June 30. Their returns (or extensions) will still be due by September 15, three and a half months after the end of the year. As a long time believer and advocate of a non-December tax year for corporations, that will mean a lot of due date changes for our clients, except for the several June 30 ones.
Longer Statute of Limitations (SOL)
This highway bill also modified the definition of “Substantial Understatement of Income” that allows IRS an SOL of six years to audit tax returns if the cost bases of assets that were sold were overstated.
I am often asked how long tax related records need to be retained. This new provision extends the time you should keep records of assets that were sold to at least six years after the tax returns reporting their sales were filed with IRS.
Forbes had some good recaps of these new changes:
IRS Audit Period Just Doubled From Three Years To Six Years For Many
For a number of years now, my favorite tax reference source has been The TaxBook. They recently posted this very informative three page PDF recap of the tax aspects of this highway bill.
Posted in Due Dates, NewTaxLaws | Comments Off on New IRS Due Dates
Posted by taxguru on August 23, 2015
Imagine that. Our most highly personal and confidential financial information is still not totally secure in the hands of our good buddies at the agency we all love, IRS. Big Brother is letting us all down here.
From FoxNews:
IRS says thieves stole tax info from additional 220,000
From IRS:
Additional IRS Statement on the "Get Transcript" Incident
Posted in Crooks, IRS | Comments Off on More IRS Security Problems
Posted by taxguru on August 14, 2015
in the fight against those who would dare to criticize her Lord & Savior, King Barack Hussein O.
Lerner, in newly released emails, calls GOP critics ‘evil and dishonest‘
Posted in Crooks, IRS | Comments Off on Lois Lerner was loyal DemonRat Soldier
Posted by taxguru on August 3, 2015
In its latest Tax News newsletter, the California Franchise Tax Board stated the following.
We noticed a large number of taxpayers who claim unreimbursed employee business expenses (EBE) on Schedule A that appear questionable.
In August, we will increase the number of audits for taxpayers deducting EBE on personal income tax returns, starting with the 2011 and 2012 tax years.
There appears to be a bit of scare strategy at work here. Normally, FTB doesn’t do many actual audits of items on income tax returns. Instead, as with most other States, they just let IRS do the bulk of the examination work and then use the IRS results to make changes to the State tax returns. They are explicitly encouraging people who don’t think they will survive an examination to file amended tax returns and do their job for them.
Your clients can file amended tax return(s) if their business expenses do not qualify.
Notice that they mention going back to 2011, highlighting the fact that the Statute of Limitations for California income tax returns has long been Four (4) years, compared to the long-standing Three (3) years with IRS.
Also, notice that the focus of this concern is just deductions on Schedule A of individual income tax returns. It doesn’t mention any problems with expenses claimed on business forms (i.e. Schedule C) or corporate tax returns (hint hint).
Posted in audits, Calif | Comments Off on Calif FTB threatening audits…
Tax Guru - Ker$tetter Letter 