kcjenkins

Just to be clear, the new Off Topic board is totally non-political.

Absolutely.

Fraz, you expressed it so well. That's why I feel this one is the 'exception'. Thanks for understanding so well. [And what did you think about the squirrel solution?]

August 22, 2014 By Jeff Stimpson The IRS is reminding truckers and other owners of heavy highway vehicles that they may need to file their next federal highway use tax return by Tuesday, September 2. According to the agency, this year’s due date was pushed back two days because the normal August 31 deadline falls on a Sunday. These returns generally apply to Form 2290 and the accompanying tax payment for the tax year that begins on July 1, 2014, and ends on June 30, 2015. The highway use tax applies to highway motor vehicles with a taxable gross weight of 55,000 pounds or more; this generally includes trucks, truck tractors and buses. (Ordinarily, vans, pick-ups and panel trucks are not taxable because they fall below the weight threshold.) The tax of up to $550 per vehicle is based on weight and various special rules apply, as explained in the instructions to the 2290. Returns must be filed and tax payments made by September 2 for vehicles used on the road during July. For vehicles first used after July, the deadline is the last day of the month following the month of first use. Though some taxpayers have the option of filing the 2290 on paper, the IRS encourages e-filing this form and paying any tax electronically. Taxpayers reporting 25 or more vehicles must e-file. A list of IRS-approved software providers is on IRS.gov. Paper returns must be mailed and postmarked by midnight on September 2. IRS offices will be closed on Labor Day, Monday, September 1. See the IRS Trucking Tax Center for more.

I think you need a good laugh. Go check out my new post about the squirrel. Bet it makes you feel better,

That's my feeling too, Makes me wonder if they were just buying time to 'doctor' them? In the past, I never liked them, but I trusted them to deal honestly with taxpayers. Now, that's gone.

Justice Department Admits that the Federal Government Has ALL of Lois Lerner’s Emails Judicial Watch just dropped a bombshell in the IRS targeting investigation. Department of Justice attorneys for the Internal Revenue Service told Judicial Watch on Friday that Lois Lerner’s emails, indeed all government computer records, are backed up by the federal government in case of a government-wide catastrophe. The Obama administration attorneys said that this back-up system would be too onerous to search. The DOJ attorneys also acknowledged that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) is investigating this back-up system. We obviously disagree that disclosing the emails as required would be onerous, and plan to raise this new development with Judge Sullivan. This is a jaw-dropping revelation. The Obama administration had been lying to the American people about Lois Lerner’s missing emails. There are no “missing” Lois Lerner emails – nor missing emails of any of the other top IRS or other government officials whose emails seem to be disappearing at increasingly alarming rate. All the focus on missing hard drives has been a diversion. The Obama administration has known all along where the email records could be – but dishonestly withheld this information. You can bet we are going to ask the court for immediate assistance in cutting through this massive obstruction of justice. “Jaw-dropping” is right. The IRS has been telling a tale about the emails not only of Lois Lerner but also several other key IRS targeting scandal figures. That tale has been coming from no less than the current director of the IRS. In disclosing that Lerner’s (and others’) emails still exist, the DOJ also said, essentially, that it thinks searching for those emails would be too much work. Would that excuse fly with the DOJ or the IRS, or would they frog-march anyone who used that excuse straight to a squad car? And while that "too onerous to search" argument might work against Judicial Watch, it shouldn't work against Congress!

Thanks, Bert, that's an important point.

And, of course, some states have very different rules for Std deductions [AR being one] so often they get the deduction on the state even if federal uses std.

Also a perfect example of the power of 'facts and circumstances'. And why a good professional uses his knowledge and experience when thinking of what can be defended, I've seen posts stating that you should not even have personal pictures in your office! Ridiculous.

I'm sure 110 posts is well over the minimum required.

Washington, D.C. (August 21, 2014) By Roger Russell Newly issued Revenue Procedure 2014-49 provides temporary relief from certain requirements of Section 42 of the Tax Code (the low-income housing credit), in the context of a "major disaster." The revenue procedure also provides emergency housing relief for individuals who are displaced by a major disaster from their principal residences in certain major disaster areas, and specifies the conditions under which an owner can provide housing in a low-income housing building to temporarily displaced individuals. A "major disaster" is a disaster as declared by the president under Section 401 of the Stafford Act, 42 U.S.C. § 5170. Rev. Proc. 2014-49 modifies and supersedes Rev. Proc. 2007-54.

I wish I could say go with option 2, but I have to agree with Jack.

Boston (August 20, 2014) By Roger Russell The First Circuit, in a case of first impression and a split with the Ninth Circuit, has held that in determining the tax treatment of an FCA (False Claims Act) civil settlement, a court may consider factors beyond the mere presence or absence of a tax characterization agreement between the government and the settling party. The case, Fresenius Medical Care Holdings, Inc. v. United States, involved the tax treatment of roughly $127 million paid to the government in partial settlement of what the court characterized as “a kaleidoscopic array of claims.” Fresenius is a major operator of dialysis centers in the U.S. and around the world. Between 1993 and 1997, a series of civil actions were brought against Fresenius by whistleblowers, resulting in investigations into Fresenius’s dealings with various federally funded health-care programs, and a complex of criminal plea and civil settlement agreements by Fresenius with the government. The district court concluded that where the parties had abstained from any tax characterization, the critical consideration in determining deductibility was the extent to which the disputed payment was compensatory as opposed to punitive. Generally, no business expense deduction is allowed for fines paid for the violation of any law, but compensatory damages may be deductible since they are not considered to fines. The First Circuit found that at trial, the court’s jury instructions followed this conclusion and directed the jury’s focus to the economic realities of the situation. According to the First Circuit, “The jury split the baby and found that a large chunk of the money ($95 million) was deductible. “ The government relied on the Ninth Circuit’s Talley decision, arguing that the FCA settlement context is special and that economic reality is irrelevant, insisting that the only pertinent inquiry is one that seeks to determine whether a tax characterization agreement exists between the government and the settling party. The First Circuit disagreed. “We cannot accept the government’s rationale,” the court stated. “A rule that requires a tax characterization agreement as a precondition to deductibility focuses too single-mindedly on the parties’ manifested intent in determining the tax treatment of a particular payment. Such an exclusive focus would give the government a whip hand of unprecedented ferocity: it could always defeat deductibility by the simple expedient of refusing to agree – no matter how arbitrarily -- to the tax characterization of a payment.”

Thanks for that useful info. I was unaware of that option.

Please remember /s is our agreed on symbol for SARCASM.

I'm at the point of thinking that 'hacking' should be reclassified as a Capital crime, simply due to horrible number of victims involved!

No idea, mine opens just fine. maybe Jack will log in soon.

I think you missed the point, Randell. 1. He wanted the assistant to do certain SPECIFIC preliminary tasks, due to the urgency of the engagement. The assistant ignored the directives given him. 2. He did not have the time at that point to 'train' him, nor was he supposed to NEED training. Sure, he points out in the piece that "It also never hurts to over-supervise when a job gets started" but the most important point is that if an employee does not follow instructions, or at least ask before deviating from them, he/she is not going to be a good team member. 3. He did not expect the guy to be able to do what he could do, " That kind of thing takes experience", as you said. But he did not have much time, due to his schedule, so he needed the preliminary work done so he could come in and hit the ground running. And the assistant did have the knowledge to do the preliminary tasks. He just did not do them. Nor ask permission to change his assigned tasks.

Washington, D.C. (August 15, 2014) By Michael Cohn The Internal Revenue Service has issued a new one-page publication with information about exemptions to the health coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act. IRS Publication 5172, “Facts about Health Coverage Exemptions,” provides information for taxpayers who qualify for and may claim an exemption from minimum essential coverage so that they do not need to make individual shared responsibility payments when they file their federal tax returns. The Congressional Budget Office and Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation estimated in a report they released last week that nearly 90 percent of the uninsured will be able to qualify for an exemption from the individual mandate for getting health insurance coverage. Those who are exempt include unauthorized immigrants, who are prohibited from receiving almost all Medicaid benefits and all subsidies through the insurance exchanges; people with income low enough that they are not required to file an income tax return; people who have income below 138 percent of the federal poverty guidelines (commonly referred to as the federal poverty level) and are ineligible for Medicaid because the state in which they reside has not expanded eligibility by 2016 under the option provided in the ACA; people whose premium exceeds a specified share of their income (8 percent in 2014 and indexed over time); and people who are incarcerated or are members of Indian tribes, according to the report. Approximately 23 million uninsured people in 2016 will qualify for one or more of those exemptions, according to the CBO and JCT report. Of the remaining 7 million uninsured people, they estimate that some will be granted exemptions from the penalty because of hardship or for other reasons. “Among the uninsured people subject to the penalty, many are expected to voluntarily report on their tax returns that they are uninsured and to pay the amount owed,” said the report. “However, other people will try to avoid payments. CBO and JCT’s estimates of the number of people who will pay penalties account for likely compliance rates as well as the ability of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to administer and collect the penalty payments. In addition to the publication on exemptions, the IRS has also released Publication 5156, “Facts about the Individual Shared Responsibility Payment,” an exemption chart, an IRS YouTube video entitled "Individual Shared Responsibilities - Overview," and a Web page with Questions and Answers on the Individual Shared Responsibility Provision to provide more information. The IRS noted that its Web page, IRS.gov/aca, has the latest information about ACA tax provisions. Visit HealthCare.gov for information about health insurance coverage and financial assistance.

August 15, 2014 By Edward Mendlowitz One time I got a client who was on the verge of going out of business and he asked if there was anything we could do to stop it from happening. After my usual tour of looking around, I sent in a staff person to get some numbers for me. I didn’t want the numbers in the financial statements, but the numbers that would show me how the business was really doing, what the trends were, how much business he did with his top five or 10 clients and vendors, the largest-selling items, his pricing methods, who his higher-paid employees were and maybe whether there was hidden value in the business. My staff guy was told what to do, that he had three days, and this was a very high priority. I called him at the end of the first day to check on his progress, and he told me it was too early to give any conclusions but would have something for me the next day. I called around 2:00 the next day and was told that he spent a good day with the client working on a break-even analysis and methods to better price his products. At that point, I got a little upset. In those days I did not hide my anger too much. I told him I would be coming over there, at which time I then fired him after hearing his explanation about why he did not follow my instructions. He explained that the client had no understanding of his costs and he priced willy-nilly. I explained that I was trying to save a dying business, and the pricing, while important, at that point would make no difference in the business surviving or not; at a later point it would. I also explained that he did not follow my instructions, and after his almost two days of work, I still did not have any information I could use to analyze and apply my skills. This staff person was a very smart, if not brilliant person —from a book-learning or pedagogical standpoint—but seemed to lack a practical understanding of our role and how to apply his (and our collective) knowledge to the situation at hand. He also did not follow my instructions—a cardinal sin! I had to start all over and did most of the work myself with assistance from a lower-level accountant on my staff. Takeaway: Besides explaining what to do and making sure your staff person knows how to do it, you need to make sure they understand that is their job, and that if they want to digress, they need to call to get agreement on the diversion. It also never hurts to over-supervise when a job gets started and to have definite benchmarks in the form of a deliverable at reasonable intervals over which the work will be done. This is a recurring theme and is part of overall project management. A secondary takeaway is that once you are sure you have a staff person who does not listen, you have to let them go—and the sooner the better.

Think Your Skin is Damage Free? They Did Too Until Faced With Shock of Truth-Telling UV Light

Nope, you were not wrong. That old link is correct, at the time. But it changed again after 2010.

I'm with you, Rita. His "normal place of work" will be church B, no matter where the paycheck comes from. Just imagine if that 'other accountant's logic was applied to Lowe's or Walmart, where the 'employer' is probably in another location for 99.999% of all employees. Since this is not a 'temporary assignment', church A is not his 'tax home', nor does it sound like the distance from A to B is significant even if it was a 'temp' assignment.