Internet Tax Lawyers

From Paul Caron:
CNN, Economists: Extend Bush Tax Cuts for Everyone:
[A] majority of a panel of leading economists surveyed by CNNMoney.com said that the tax cuts should be renewed for everyone.
  Bookmark & Share:

Sorry for the dirth of posts here this month. We are in the middle of relocating our offices and things have been quite hectic.
I expect to make up for it in October.
Thanks for your patience.
Bookmark & Share:

The home mortgage interest deduction is probably the single most sacred provision in the Internal Revenue Code. I remember when, in 1986, Congress flirted briefly with the idea of repealing it. The secretaries at my law firm – normally an apolitical bunch – marched through the halls yelling revolutionary slogans. Congress backed down the next [...]

The IRS has updated Publication 4681, Canceled Debts, Foreclosures, Repossessions, and Abandonments (for Individuals). I know, you’re thinking “So what?”
Well, the “So what?” is the updated worksheet for determining insolvency, found on page 6 of the Pub (and at the bottom of this post). The worksheet is a handy resource for taxpayers who have been [...]

On Monday, President Obama signed into law HR 5297, the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010. The law includes a series of temporary tax deductions for businesses of all sizes. The bill also includes provisions, which the government hopes will offset some of the costs of the bill. The following is a summary of certain [...]

Bonus Depreciation

• Businesses can take advantage of the special 50% depreciation allowance, also known as bonus depreciation, thus allowing for quick recovery of capital expenditure costs. For all 2009 purchases, businesses may immediately expense 50% of capital expenditures for new items. This tax-saving opportunity was designed to encourage investments by allowing businesses to write them off more quickly.
• The package of tax breaks for small businesses currently before the Senate for consideration would reinstate the 50% percent bonus depreciation for 2010.
• Businesses may take a total depreciation deduction of $2,960 for passenger automobiles used in the business and first placed in service in 2009. ($10,960 if the special depreciation allowance applies). Further, businesses may take a total depreciation deduction of $3,060 for trucks and vans used in the business and first placed in service in 2009. ($11,060 if the special depreciation allowance applies).

There are several tax incentives small businesses may take advantage of this tax season, before the October 15th deadline (for those who obtained an extension). The Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009 expanded the Net Operating Loss (NOL) Carryback option, while the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 increased the Section 179 Deduction and extended the bonus depreciation. These tax incentives may be especially helpful for contractors and other small business owners who have been hurt by the economy.

Section 179 Deduction

• Whereas businesses typically recover capital investments through annual depreciation deductions spread over a number of years, the section 179 deduction allows small businesses to expense capital purchases, up to $250,000, for the cost of machinery, equipment, vehicles, furniture, and other qualifying property placed in service during 2009. This limit is reduced by the extent section 179 property placed in service in the tax year exceeds $800,000.
• A package of tax breaks for small businesses currently before the Senate for consideration would allow higher expensing limits (up to $500,000 of the cost of assets put in service in 2010 and 2011). After $2 million of assets are placed in service, the $500,000 write-off would begin to phase out (the current phase-out begins at $800,000).

Expanded Net Operating Loss Carryback

• Businesses and contractors that have suffered net operating losses (NOL) now have greater flexibility in carrying the loss back to a prior year to get a tax refund.
• These net operating loss provisions allow businesses to carry the loss back three, four, or five years, or a loss from operations for four or five years, in order to offset taxable income in the preceding taxable years. (An NOL can typically be carried back for only two years).
• The small business (revenues less than $15 million in gross receipts over a three-year period) limitation on NOL carrybacks has been removed, and thus nearly all taxpayers are eligible for the five-year carryback period. However, an NOL or loss from operations carried back five years (yet not four or three) may not offset more than 50 percent of the taxpayer’s taxable income in the fifth preceding year.
• Eligible individuals have until October 15, 2010 to choose this expanded carryback option. Eligible calendar-year corporations had until September 15, 2009.

Offshore banking is not the answer to evading taxes.  Offshore bank accounts- such as those with Swiss banks – have been glamorized in many movies and tv shows as the solution to stashing away extra cash with the idea of avoiding taxes.  If you haven’t been keeping up with the headlines, you may be surprised to find out that the IRS won an agreement that has given them access to an
[Read More]

Related posts:

1. Georgia Women Plead Guilty to Tax Refund Conspiracy – Defrauded the US Government of Nearly $200K

While it’s important to stay away from tax relief scams that sound too good to be true, it’s also equally if not more important to hire a tax relief firm that is credible and well-qualified. If you get the best team together to fight for you, you will be maximizing your chances of settling your IRS tax debt for good while not paying a penny more than you have to. I
[Read More]

Related posts:

1. Need Tax Help? Glenn Beck Nationally Endorses Tax Resolution Services For Your IRS Problems
2. Nation’s Leading Tax Resolution Expert Offers IRS Tax Relief Tips Live on Big Biz TV
3. IRS Relief News: What Americans With Back Taxes Need to Know About Reaching Out to the IRS for Tax Help

Alston v State of New York, Ct. of Appeals, 97 N.Y.2d 159 The doctrine of sovereign immunity generally shields a state from suit absent its consent. In Alden v Maine, 527 US 706, the Supreme Court of the United States…

It just got a little easier for taxpayers to plan around two thorny bits of the Internal Revenue Code: the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax.
The Obama administration budget resolution Congress approved on Wednesday for fiscal 2010 outlines changes for these controversial levies.
It extends the estate-tax top rate of 45% on estates over $3.5 [...]

Our suburban neighborhood held our annual garage sale event this weekend. Rather than have 100 yard sales scattered across 100 Saturdays and Sundays, everyone puts out their junk on the same day.
The hubby and I actually find it pretty annoying. We don’t participate, either as sellers or buyers, although I have been tempted to wander [...]

President Obama roiled the business community Monday by proposing to hike taxes on income generated outside the United States. The changes, which supposedly would close loopholes and remove incentives to export jobs and investment, would bring an estimated $210 billion to the Treasury over the next decade. We’re all for closing loopholes and ending tax [...]

Deutch has run into legal trouble before. In 2006, she agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by New York City’s Department of Consumer Affairs alleging she mislead consumers with her advertisements.

Brown stated, “Tax Lady Roni Deutch is engaged in a heartless scheme that swindled people with tax problems.” Brown continued, “She promises to significantly reduce their IRS tax debts, but instead preys on their vulnerability, taking large up-front payments but providing little or no help in lowering their tax bills.”

This news follows the similar lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott against TaxMasters, Inc. citing nearly 1,000 complaints about TaxMasters’ conduct and business practices.

Deutch holds her corporation out as the nation’s largest tax resolution law firm. She has authored a book, “The Tax Lady’s Guide to Beating the IRS,”, and has personally appeared on Fox, CNN, NBC, CNBC, and ABC. She has also made appearances on numerous radio stations, including Oprah Radio XM and CNN Radio. Deutch also is responsible for a franchisee network of 65 tax-preparation centers in 21 states.

California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown (“Jerry”) filed a lawsuit yesterday, August 23, 2010, against “tax lady” Roni Deutch demanding approximately $34 million in restitution.

Brown’s suit alleges Deutch’s firm charges up to $4,700 per client, offers a “bevy of false promises”, yet does little for the customer. Further, the suit maintains that when customers demand their money back, the firm unleashes phony billing statements to “systematically cheat their clients out of refunds by exaggerating the amount of time spent on the matters.” The lawsuit further alleges Deutch successfully reduces the amount her clients owe in taxes in approximately 10 percent of cases, whereas Deutch advertises a success rate of up to 99 percent.

Such individuals will be required to pass a minimum competency examination and possess a current PTIN in order to become registered tax return preparers. After passing the examination, the preparers will be subject to suitability checks designed to uncover any past conduct violative of Circular 230. The proposed regulations would limit registered tax return preparers’ practice before the IRS; namely, such preparers could not represent taxpayers before the IRS except during an examination of a tax return if it was signed by the registered tax return preparer.

The IRS recently proposed Circular 230 regulations designed to regulate and register tax return preparers. The proposed amendments to Circular 230 would clarify what tax advisers are permitted and are not permitted to do, clarify the definition of tax practice, establish a new “registered tax return preparer” designation, and establish new rules and standards on tax return preparation. The IRS also revealed a new online preparer taxpayer identification number (PTIN) application system that is set to go live in September, allowing the IRS to track preparers’ work and find them if problems arise.

The establishment of the “registered tax return preparer” designation by the proposed Circular 230 regulations would create a new class of practitioners. The Circular 230 regulations would define eligibility requirements for becoming a registered tax return preparer. Thus, anyone who is not an attorney, certified public accountant, or enrolled agent will be required to become a registered tax return preparer in order to prepare tax returns.

One issue that may be clarified for tax professionals is the difference between a lawful tax structure and a tax structure the IRS or courts may contest. There are currently a wide range of standards that address how certain an adviser or other tax professionals must be that a recommended tax position is valid. Standards range from an adviser having a “reasonable basis” of certainty to demonstrating that the position is “more likely [valid] than not”.

Are you staying up late at night because you don’t have enough money to pay off your tax debt? Are you worried that your tax problems will only get worse but have no idea how to resolve it?
Did you know that you don’t have to live like this? 1 in 6 Americans has tax problems–so you’re definitely not alone. Find comfort in the fact that there is an array of
[Read More]

Related posts:

1. Release Your IRS Bank Levy: How a Tax Attorney or Certified Tax Resolution Specialist Can Give You an Advantage
2. Retire Your IRS Back Taxes Forever: How Tax Resolution Services Helped Save a Taxpayer $130,000
3. Get Tax Help to Avoid Jail Time Like Las Vegas Man Charged With 15 Years For Tax Evasion

Matter of Johnson v Town of Amherst, 2010 NY Slip Op 05447, Decided on June 18, 2010, Appellate Division, Fourth Department The Town of Amherst’s Town Code required its employees to be “domiciliaries of the Town.” James I. Johnson’s family’s…

In many cases situations involving divorce, or those where a child is born of two parents who are not married, there is a question about who is allowed to take the child as an exemption on their income tax return. With the exemption at $3,650, and a potential tax credit of up to $1,000 per [...]

Four current and former partners of the Ernst & Young accounting firm were found guilty Thursday of fraud involving tax shelters that helped wealthy people evade income taxes.
Federal prosecutors charged the four in May 2007, contending that from 1998 to 2006 they defrauded the I.R.S. by creating, marketing, using and defending tax shelters.
The shelters were [...]

Professional service firms and corporations are sending tax compliance work to supposed lower cost foreign locations. Some public accounting firms have operations in India and some corporations have shared service centers there as well as other non-U.S. locations. However this is a very small percentage of the work load in the U.S. tax compliance pool.
This [...]

Marcos Esparza Bofill reportedly googled himself to ensure that the $172 million tax bill he received from the IRS was not a practical joke. When informed of the tax bill, which has been posted on The Smoking Gun web site, he reportedly asked, “What’s the IRS?”

So how did this former Alphabet City hipster / garage band guitarist (who was reportedly broke, living in a tenement apartment while in NYC) wind up with a whopping tax bill that even Trump himself wouldn’t laugh at?

Hipsters (and the rest of us) should be careful to file accurate tax returns if engaging in any day trading. The IRS, when preparing the Substitute For Return (SFR), can (and usually does) view each sale as 100% profit. Thus, because the IRS does not have the information regarding the purchase price (or basis) of the stocks, they generate the taxes due by the total amount of trades made rather than the profit earned from each trade.

Apparently, Esparza Bofill wasn’t just an Alphabet City hipster / garage band guitarist; he was an Alphabet City hipster / garage band guitarist / day trader. It was the latter identity that got him into huge trouble when he failed to file a tax return for 2006.