Reducing employment tax fraud by third-party payers, professional employer organizations (PEOs), has been a federal initiative since 2014. A certification program was designed to require a PEO to notify the IRS of employers using their services. Yet as of March 31, 2017, only 123 PEOs had applied for certification. Our most […]
Author: Lawrence Brown
Disasters – including massive storms (like the hurricanes that recently struck the Southeast and Puerto Rico), fires, earthquakes, mudslides and floods – can result in the complete loss of a person’s belongings. In a catastrophic event, everything can be gone in an instant, including: Furniture Housewares Clothing Mementos/photos/heirlooms Electronics Financial […]
It seems like a plot from a blockbuster action movie. A man takes on a position as a deep undercover agent, a spy for Germany. He blends into the criminal underworld, gathering evidence to support the arrest and conviction of drug dealers, diamond smugglers and terrorists all over the world. […]
Credit giant Equifax, one of the three main credit reporting agencies, recently revealed a massive data breach that occurred earlier in the year. Hackers got through the company’s electronic security protocols and into databases full of confidential information. Conservative estimates put the number of affected Americans at a staggering 143 […]
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act became law in 2010. It requires that foreign financial entities report certain accounts that are owned by citizens of the United States. A failure to comply with this law can result in stiff penalties, including a 30 percent withholding tax on income from the […]
Four tax preparers are facing prison time for tax crimes connected to their tax preparation services. The accusations included putting together faulty tax returns and cashing in on fraudulent refunds. The Department of Justice (DOJ) discussed the case in a recent press release, noting that the government is coming down […]
American authorities at the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service are continuing their ongoing investigation into Swiss banks to determine compliance with the regulations set forth by the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). Their investigation has now branched out to include Swiss insurance companies. Specifically, investigators are […]
Earlier this week, the South Dakota Supreme Court issued a decision that is likely to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. The issue before the high court would be whether a state can impose a sales or use tax on purchases by state residents from out-of-state merchants with no physical presence […]
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) recently announced that the public should be on the lookout for the latest scam. The scam is successful because it is deceptively realistic. It involves an email with a claim that one of these federal agencies is attempting to […]
The United States House of Representatives recently voted to approve a proposal that would make it more difficult for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to seize assets in structuring cases. The law is designed to revise the authority of the IRS to seize property “that has been structured to avoid […]