In tax planning as in life, success isn’t always about big victories. In many cases, it involves making the most of your losses. This can occur, for example, in the context of making proper use of tax deductions for casualty losses. We discussed that issue in our June 26 post. […]
Newly released statistics show that the IRS has been accepting Offers in Compromise at a higher rate than at any other time during the 21st century. During 2013 and 2014, the IRS accepted 40% or more of all submitted offers. An Offer in Compromise (OIC) is essentially an offer by a […]
The Department of Justice announced that a father and son team of tax return preparers have been sentenced for conspiring with clients to prepare false tax returns omitting the clients’ foreign financial accounts or foreign income. David Kalai has been sentenced to serve 36 months, while his son, Nadav Kalai, […]
Many Americans have heard of the so-called “marriage penalty.” This refers to the notion that marriage results in higher taxes for at least some married couples when filing jointly than the members of those couples would have had collectively as individuals. Is this notion a myth or is it actually […]
In the first part of this post, we took note of the latest interpretation from the U.S. Department of Labor on distinguishing independent contractors from employees. The Labor Department is likely to continue to raise questions about whether employers are making classification decisions that comply with the Fair Labor Standards […]
Sometimes a change makes so much sense that you wonder why it didn’t happen earlier. Many taxpayers with offshore accounts would agree this is the case with the recent adjustment of the filing date for the FBAR form. In this post, we will inform you about the change, under which […]
On July 31, 2015, the President signed into law H.R. 3236, the Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015. Buried in the bill are some important changes to due dates for returns, including FinCen Report 114 (FBAR). Starting with the 2016 tax year, the due date […]
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington has upheld FBAR penalties of $10,000 for tax years 2005 through 2008, but admonished the IRS for what it said was “arbitrary” and “capricious” conduct. As a result, the court ordered that any additional interest or late payment penalties are […]
How employers should classify workers for tax purposes remains a highly troublesome issue. Indeed, with more and more businesses increasing the use of contract workers, classification issues are as pressing as ever. We’ve been following these issues regularly in this blog. For example, in our January 15 post, we wrote […]
As the U.S. government’s much publicized crackdown on Swiss banks continues, they may be turning their focus to Southeast Asia, where a Singaporean asset-management firm has fallen under criminal investigation. The firm is suspected of accepting transfers from U.S. taxpayers who were forced to shut down their undeclared Swiss accounts […]