Self-employed workers have tax compliance challenges that other taxpayers do not. The underlying reason for this fairly simple: workers who are considered self-employed for tax purposes have to pay their Social Security and Medicare taxes. You don’t have an employer withholding and paying it for you, but instead have to […]
To add onto our prior post this week, we want to discuss the IRS streamlined disclosure program. If you were one of 30,000 to use this program, your legal troubles might not be over. The streamlined program does not come with any guarantee – it only offers a limit amnesty. […]
“Waiting for the other shoe to drop” is a curious expression. It is an idiomatic way of expressing a sense of inevitability. The idea is that when one event in a linked-sequence happens, it’s just a matter of time before the next one follows. This appears to be what’s happening […]
Reports on foreign bank accounts are due today, June 30. But if this is your first time filing you might have questions and concern that you should address first. FinCen Form 114 (FBAR) is electronically filed with the Department of Treasury. While technically there is no extension to the deadline, […]
In the first part of this post, we took note of the provision put in place by Congress to authorize the IRS to revoke or deny passports due to “seriously delinquent” taxes. To be sure, certain requirements must be met. But if they are met, your passport may be at […]
The so-called “Panama Papers” have continued to spell trouble not only for the Panamanian law firm alleged to have created illegal tax havens for clients to shield assets from American tax liability, but also for the countless law-abiding expatriates, foreign nationals and U.S. citizens with international banking accounts. The scandal […]
Audits by the taxman are scary things. No Texas business or resident likes the idea of facing off with the IRS. However, what readers may be surprised to learn is that the IRS doesn’t much care for audits, either. Its own studies reveal that audits are time consuming for the agency […]
Texas, Florida, Nevada and Wyoming are a few of the states that have no state income tax. U.S. territories also have different tax policies. A long-standing agreement between the Virgin Islands and the U.S. allows territory residents to pay their taxes to the Islands. As retirees know when they split […]
Uncle Sam has been hard up for cash for many years. On a national level, the scale is staggering: an estimated deficit this year for the U.S. government of $544 billion. Not surprisingly, with so much red ink, various proposals to put more collection capabilities in the IRS’s toolkit have […]
Let’s resume our discussion of the closely watched tax evasion case involving Lionel Messi, the famed soccer star. As we noted in part 1, Messi contends he signed tax returns and contracts without really knowing the contents. He told the Spanish court that he did so because he trusted his […]