TaxEsqBlog -by Ronald J. Cappuccio, J.D., LL.M.(Tax)

Columbus - taxes, the government shutdown and ObamaCare Today is Columbus Day. Growing up it was an important holiday but now Columbus is being derided for all of his various faults. My son, who is in 8th grade and has an extremely inspiring history teacher, came home and told me that "Mrs. M does not think we should celebrate Columbus Day." He went on to tell me that Leif Erickson actually discovered America and that Columbus spread disease and tortured Native Americans. What he didn't say was that Columbus also demanded tribute from the Indians, stole their gold, enslaved some of the Indians and brought them back to Spain as objects of curiosity. He also didn't discuss the brutality and all of the other negative things that can be brought up about Columbus. Thank heavens! Those who pooh-pooh Columbus bring up the fact that most educated Europeans in the late 15th century knew that the world was a sphere and not flat. But the fact was, like the great inventors...

The IRS has finally announced that it will stop the automatic issuing of federal tax liens, levies and executions during the government shut down.  Unfortunately, many automatic levies have been issued by the IRS and there is no one in the IRS to talk to or negotiate with to set up installment agreements or take other actions to remove the levy.  This results in great hardship for taxpayers. The IRS has been issuing notices, some dated October 7, 2013, even though the office was to be shut down by October 1, 2013.  It is hard for me to believe that this was not designed to have maximum impact upon taxpayers.  In fact all the IRS services that normally assist taxpayers, whether its at a service center, or on the telephone, as well as the normal collection and auditing function, have been terminated during the shutdown.  This intentional design clearly is to put a maximum negative impact upon taxpayers. Because of the complaints, the IRS is now issued a revise...

The IRS is at it again going after famous people to make big publicity splashes about their criminal prosecutions.  This time, it involves 69-year-old H. Ty Warner, the inventor of Beanie Babies the craze of the 90s, for having Swiss bank accounts.  The Department of Justice and IRS love to attack popular and well-known people in order to demonstrate that the government uses force against people who are "tax evaders". I am not arguing that Mr. Warner did not violate US tax law, but the Government once again is using the prosecution of a famous person such as Mr. Warner (previously Lauryn Hill, Wesley Snipes, Leona Helsley, etc) to show that it will use the full force of the government to collect taxes. The really sad part of this is that if Mr. Warner were a citizen of almost any other country, earning income in a foreign country would not be considered taxable.  The US is one of only 2 countries that taxes of foreign earnings of its citizens.  None of the news a...

The IRS is scaling back operations during the Government Shutdown These are the things to remember: 1. FILE all tax returns on time. 2. PAY all tax deposits and balances on time. For example, the October 15 extension date for filing Individual returns still applies. 3. The IRS computers will be generating notices, levies, and other tax actions and the websites should be working. 4. AUDITS will be delayed until after the shutdown. 5. Some COLLECTION activities will be delayed. 6. All TIME DEADLINES remain in effect. If you have a letter stating you must respond in 30 days, 90 days, etc, and you do not, you will lose your appeal rights when the IRS does reopen. Here is a good excerpt for RIA Checkpoint: Government shutdown forces IRS to scale back operations IRS has announced on its website (irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/IRS-Operations-During-The-Lapse-In-Appropriations) that its operations have been scaled back due to the government shutdown. However, it emphasized that taxpay...

Talk about beating a dead horse!  Yes, that is the IRS position before the courts as to why it can regulate and control tax return preparers.  The district court properly struck down the IRS attempt to control tax preparers as being outside its authority under law.  Congress has never authorized the IRS to control tax return preparers, and frankly it is a truly bad idea.  Why should the IRS be permitted to regulate and control tax return preparers that are supposed to represent taxpayers who are truly adversarial to the IRS? In an attempt to show that they have authority to regulate tax return preparers, the IRS argued before the appellate courts yesterday that a law from the 1880s concerning the regulation of representatives of the people who lost their horses horses when they were killed by the government gives every government agency the right to regulate and control any paid person that has anything to do with the agency.  That would include tax return pre...

IRS provides updated guidance for equitable innocent spouse relief requests RIA, a large Tax Publisher, reported on revisions to Innocent Spouse relief requests. It has been extremely difficult (if not practically impossible) for married couples still living together to have one spouse qualify under the "innocent spouse" relief provisions. Even in situations where one spouse has illegal earnings, or has a huge increase in tax due to a business audit, the IRS almost always rejects the Innocent Spouse claim. The main argument is the spouse "benefited" from the income and higher life style and therefore should have known of the misreported income or expenses.  In addition to the usual denial of relief, the extremely long time for the IRS to process the requests, makes it costly and annoying. Supposedly, there will be a "streamlined" request. Usually, when the IRS announces such "reforms" they really do not mean much for most taxpayers. In ...

I f you converted a traditional IRA  into a Roth account last year and are now unhappy with the results, you can reverse the conversion as long as you get it done by October 15. Here's what you need to know as this deadline rapidly approaches. Reversal Basics When you converted your traditional IRA into a Roth IRA last year, the transaction was treated as a distribution from the traditional IRA followed by a contribution of the distributed amount to the Roth account. So the conversion triggered a 2012 federal income tax bill (and maybe a state income tax bill, too) based on the traditional IRA's value on the conversion date.  Please see further details here . Before you make this decision, call your tax lawyer! Ronald J. Cappuccio, J.D., LL,M.(Tax) Counsellor at Law www.TaxEsq.com 856 665-2121