FILING A CORRECT TAX RETURN – ARE YOU ON YOUR OWN?

Brian Wynne, CPA

In January of this year, two articles appeared in The Washington Post within 2 days of each other that shine a light on the present status of tax collection in this country and help depict a not-so-certain future.

The first, appearing on the front page on January 5, 2010, discusses plans by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to regulate people who are paid to prepare tax returns, “stepping into a virtually unregulated business on which millions of American […]

July 7, 2010 Accounting, Tax Read more...

Questions to Ask the Employer if They Run Electronic Payroll Reports

Posting by Phil Vivirito

If the employer is running you an electronic report from their payroll, ensure you ask the following few, but very important, questions:

Is this the entire payroll?  The employer may be producing a query just for your audit and exclude certain job classes or only include employees that they are reporting.  The employer may forget about terminated employees and only include currently active ones.

Are all pay types or pay codes included?  The employer may believe that certain […]

July 1, 2010 Payroll Audit Read more...

Where is Fraud Likely? – Part 14: Investment Income

Lawrence R. Beebe, CPA, Principal

Investment Income Disappears if No One Accounts for It

Most entities do an excellent job of accounting for their investments.  If an investment disappeared from an investment advisor’s monthly statement, the entity would quickly discover the error.  If the entity did not get credit for the scheduled interest or dividend payment on the investment would that payment be missed?  Probably not.

A CPA firm was auditing a pension fund.  The pension fund had numerous investments, including a […]

July 1, 2010 Accounting, Forensic Accounting, Wealth Management Read more...

Whose De-Fault is It? It’s All Greek to Me…

Posting by Geoffrey D. Brown

I was reading an article the other day about some of the budget woes facing various states across the country and it’s not a pretty picture, as several may face default at some point over the next few years.  For example: in ten years the state of Illinois will have to pay $14 billion annually in pension benefits, which will amount to roughly 25% of its budget.  I found that astounding.  Georgia’s infrastructure, which is […]

June 30, 2010 Family Owned Businesses Read more...

Using Electronic Payroll Records from the Employer

Posting by Phil Vivirito

You have called an employer to schedule a payroll audit and the employer states ‘I’ll save you the trip; I can easily send you the payroll in an electronic format.’ Thinking about the travel expense savings you happily say yes. So now you await the records arrival and make your plan for doing the audit in your office. When the records do arrive they are usually in one of the following formats: PDF, a custom report […]

June 24, 2010 Payroll Audit Read more...

Where is Fraud Likely? – Part 13: It’s Not Miscellaneous

Lawrence R. Beebe, CPA, Principal

In this series, we are discussing specific areas where fraud might be likely to occur within an organization and the steps management can take to detect and prevent fraud.

Fraud is Not Likely to be Hidden in Miscellaneous Expense 

The crook knows that the auditor is going to analyze miscellaneous expense looking for any significant or unusual transactions.  Therefore, miscellaneous expense is seldom the dumping ground for the fraudulent transaction.  The more intelligent crook will try to […]

June 24, 2010 Accounting, Forensic Accounting Read more...

DID YOU FORGET YOUR JUNE 15TH ESTIMATED PAYMENT? HOW TO PREVENT MISSED QUARTERLY TAX PAYMENTS

Like most of us, something that only has to be done four times a year is often forgotten.  And so it goes with quarterly estimates.  These late or forgotten payments can cause you to incur underpayment penalty.

The US Treasury offers a payment mechanism that may help. It is the “Electronic Federal Tax Payment System,” or “EFTPS” for short.

EFTPS is a secure, free system where, after enrollment, you can schedule required quarterly federal payments up to one year in advance.  […]

June 22, 2010 Accounting, Tax Read more...

Family Businesses Have a Powerful Marketing Differentiator

Posting by Joel C. Susco, CPA

Every day, we are bombarded with marketing communications.  From the television to electronic and print ads, to Twitter and Facebook, there is no denying that there is a battle going on for our attention.  Most marketing communications tend to slide right off of us like Teflon.  Are limited-budget companies hoping to make meaningful, lasting impressions on their target customers completely screwed?  If you are a family-owned and -operated company with a couple generations under […]

June 22, 2010 Family Owned Businesses Read more...

THE ROTH 401(K) – A GOOD ALTERNATIVE TO THE ROTH IRA?

Brian Wynne, CPA

As my colleague mentioned last week, the income limitations on Roth IRA conversions (moving qualified retirement plan or traditional IRA assets into a Roth IRA) were removed beginning in 2010.  That change opens the door for all taxpayers to take advantage of the Roth IRA – specifically the tax-free growth (as opposed to tax-deferred in a 401(k) or traditional IRA) and the lack of required minimum distributions (RMDs).  You pay the tax once on conversion to move […]

June 3, 2010 Accounting, Tax Read more...

0 PROTECTING YOUR TAX IDENTITY

An estimated nine million people each  year are subject to identity theft based on reports from the Federal Trade Commission.  This is certainly an alarming figure and this type of fraud can take many forms.  Thieves have been targeting victims to commit credit card, utilities and bank fraud.  Most people are aware that checking your credit score and monitoring other online banking reports help to determine if your identity has been stolen.

Your tax returns can be subject to fraud, […]

May 30, 2010 Accounting, Forensic Accounting, Tax Read more...