Brian Wynne, CPA
Congress has come to an agreement on extending the payroll tax cut, and the deal is expected to be approved by the end of this week. The agreement would leave in place the 2% reduction (from 6.2% to 4.2%) in Social Security tax paid by workers for the remainder of 2012. It had previously been reduced only for the first two months of 2012. Social Security tax is paid by US workers on up to $110,100 of […]
Posting by Dan Bottner and William Thomas
Picking up right where we left off, remember the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) was part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act from 2010. One of the goals of this Act was to develop a framework for the IRS to ensure disclosure of foreign (or off-shore) assets held by individuals and companies. Not to mention, off-shore asset disclosure has become a theme within our own blog.
There are many guidelines […]
Posting by Joel C. Susco, CPA
That time of year has come and gone again. The office parties, family get-togethers, and buying presents are over, and tax planning for the year has begun. It just does not seem like there are enough hours in the day or days in the week to accomplish it all. But, it is important to spend some time after this end-of-year madness to focus on areas that may have gotten away from us during the […]
The Internal Revenue Service is going back to the well one more time as it released the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) for a third time in as many years. For Uncle Sam, this program has been very successful in raising approximately $4.4 Billion.
Little has changed from the previous Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program published earlier in our blog. The IRS intends for this program to function similarly by offering an opportunity for taxpayers to report offshore accounts and get […]
IRS recently released 2011’s form 1040 and its corresponding schedules C, E and F. These schedules are used by sole proprietors to report different kinds of business income. IRS has added questions dealing with 1099 reporting to all three schedules for tax year 2011. The first question asks if the taxpayer has made any payments in 2011 that would require him/her to file Form(s) 1099. If the answer is yes, then the next item asks whether the taxpayer did […]
As the on-going battle over the extension of the payroll tax cuts continues in Congress, those of us in the tax professional community are left scratching our heads and trying to advise our clients on what will happen with respect to income and estate taxes over the next few years. The only thing I can say to my clients with any confidence is that anyone who tries to predict what tax changes may emerge from this Congress is talking […]
Last week, the Internal Revenue Service issued the 2012 optional standard mileage rates for taxpayers who choose to use this method in calculating the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical, or moving purposes.
The rate for business miles driven remains unchanged from the mid-year adjustment on July 1, 2011. The charitable mileage rate remains unchanged from 2011 as well, while the medical and moving mileage rate is reduced by 0.5 cents per mile.
Beginning on January 1, […]
Sherwin Abellera, CPA
Adjusting to new things takes time. Consider the revised Form 990. The Form itself was released by the IRS in 2007, but clients and practitioners continue to struggle with its filing requirements. To assist filers, the IRS has a resource called “Filing Tips for Form 990 (Tax Years 2008 and Later)”.
One of the more confusing requirements deals with compensation. Compensation can be defined in many different ways by different organizations, thus the question of where, what and […]
The IRS has introduced a new tax form (Form 8949) for reporting capital gains and losses from stocks, bonds, mutual funds and similar investments. Starting with the 2011 tax year, investment transactions will be reported on the new Form 8949, Sales and Other Dispositions of Capital Assets.
Brokers
Starting in 2011, cost basis information for “covered securities” will be included directly on the 1099-B. Brokers are required to provide cost basis for stock in a corporation acquired on or after January […]
As we enter the last month of the year, taxpayers are once again faced with a mountain of expiring tax provisions. There are 59 different provisions that will expire on December 31, unless Congress sees fit to extend some or all of them. It is a safe bet that some will be extended, (perhaps retroactively), but others will die.
The most likely survivor will be the extension of the social security tax payroll reduction that has been around since January, […]
