If tax it the time of coronavirus taught us anything, it's that tax professionals are indispensable. On the heels of getting a handle on the 2017 tax reform changes, tax pros this filing season were handed even more jobs. They helped people understand COVID-19 economic relief payments, what tax tasks were delayed until when and the Paycheck Protection Program. And now, just days after Tax Day 2020 finally came and went, another coronavirus stimulus package, no doubt with more tax implications, is in the works. The bottom line is that tax help from a reputable tax pro is critical, in... Read more →
Tax crimes
You're following all the recommended pandemic precautions. You stay home. You have your groceries and meals delivered. If you must go out, it's for drive-through or curbside pickup of necessary items. You always wear a mask when you leave your home. But you still might not be safe from the latest iteration of the coronavirus outbreak. This time, though, it's not medical, but financial. Scammers are coming to us via emails and phone calls, using a variety of tricks to get their hands on our COVID-19 economic impact payments (EIPs) and other funds. The Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation (CI)... Read more →
This U.S. Department of Justice mug shot of Al Capone was taken four months before his tax eviction conviction on Oct. 17, 1931. It's 89 years, later and Scarface still gets our attention, most recently in a movie about his later days. If there's one tiny sliver of silver lining in coronavirus self-isolation, it's that I feel a bit better about shelling out money for added television features. During our stay-home time, the hubby and I are taking advantage of premium cable, as well as the multiple streaming platforms to which we subscribe. Right now, my viewing tastes are winning.... Read more →
The shift would highlight the protective agency's more investigative activities. Plus, a look at the Secret Service's evolution and movies featuring its agents to help you pass time in coronavirus self-isolation. Secret Service agent Allen Taylor following former First Lady Michelle Obama in a less formal setting. Obama discusses her protective coverage in Netflix's now-streaming "Becoming" documentary. (Photo: Netflix) The Secret Service could be heading home. The federal law enforcement agency known mostly for its agents who protect the president, the White House occupant's family and other U.S. elected leaders and visiting foreign dignitaries is part of the Department of... Read more →
The Treasury Department says it's on schedule to get coronavirus economic recovery payments to folks' bank accounts next week. There's even better news for those who want to change the payment's delivery method from snail mail to direct deposit. Politico's Morning Tax newsletter reports that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Capitol Hill lawmakers that the online tool that could speed up delivery of the COVID-19 money also will up and running next week. That's the mechanism that, as I noted in yesterdays' post, whereby folks who've previously received refunds as paper checks sent via the U.S. Postal Service or didn't... Read more →
Photo by Vera Arsic via Pexels The biggest problem for most of us in coronavirus lockdown with our families, whether ordered by state or local officials or self-imposed, is figuring out how to not get on each other's last nerve. For some, however, the forced togetherness is deadly serious. Possibly just deadly. Domestic violence since COVID-19 appeared has spiked as victims find themselves forced to stay home with abusers, according to those who work to protect people, still primarily women, from abusive partners and spouses. It's happening globally, across the United States and here in Texas. "During a time of... Read more →
The specifics on how and when the Internal Revenue Service will issue the payments created under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act have been changing. First, older filers were going to have to file a special return form to get the money. Now, the Treasury Department says the IRS will use eligible recipients' Social Security information and directly deposit them without requiring any additional action. As for when that will happen, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said yesterday that the delivery timetable has been accelerated. The IRS will start getting the money out to some next week. However,... Read more →
We are heading into the heart of tax filing season. That means it's also prime tax identity theft time. As part of its continuing efforts to fight cyber tax crime, the Internal Revenue Service this week launched a new web page, Identity Theft Central. Among the areas this new IRS.gov section covers is what to do if you're a victim of tax identity theft. The one that caught my eye was getting a copy of a fraudulent return that was filed in your name. I know that my journalistic tendencies make me nosy in the first place. But if I... Read more →
Detroit police inspecting illegal alcohol distilling equipment found in a clandestine underground brewery during Prohibition. (Photo: National Archives and Records Administration via Wikipedia Commons) Last week was the 100th anniversary of a momentous, and eventually failed, effort by U.S. lawmakers to control public actions. Following ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1919, Congress followed up with the National Prohibition Act, commonly referred to as the Volstead Act. It outlawed the production, distribution and transportation of alcohol. The United States officially went dry on Jan. 17, 1920. Not only did Prohibition, authorized by the 18th Amendment, fail to stop Americans from... Read more →
IRS building by David Boeke via Flickr CC A lot of former Internal Revenue Service employees take the lessons they learned on that job and create second careers as tax advisers and preparers. That's a nice professional segue. Going from being part of the U.S. tax collection machine to helping folks pay Uncle Sam as little as legally possible. But it needs to be done after IRS employees leave their government job. One current IRS staffer in the agency's Andover, Massachusetts, service center was, to borrow a tax term, double dipping. Worse, federal prosecutors say she filed almost 600 false... Read more →
The tax world is atwitter, literally on social media and figuratively for those not addicted to the sociability component of their electronic devices, now that the Internal Revenue Service is already accepting business tax returns and will start taking 2019 tax year 1040 forms from individuals on Jan. 27. Everyone, from taxpayers to income payers to tax professionals are already at work, with most at this point gathering data in preparation for the actual filings. For tax professionals, that includes a written security plan to safeguard all the sensitive tax and financial information they handle for their clients. Tax data... Read more →
Folks who cheat on their taxes to pocket extra dollars are infuriating enough to those of us struggling to do everything right on our 1040 forms. Folks who go to extremes to evade taxes are even more maddening. The Internal Revenue Service, however, has some good news for us here. It's Criminal Investigation (CI) unit is catching and convicting these tax criminals at a commendable rate. A 91.2 percent conviction rate in 2019, to be precise. That's among the highest of all federal law enforcement agencies, according to the IRS. And CI, which detailed that conviction rate and other successes... Read more →
Updated Friday, Dec. 6, 2019 Source: PhotoMIX Ltd via Pexels Yes, I know Cyber Monday has come and gone. I also realize that a lot of folks finished up their holiday shopping earlier this week. But there always are those of us who put off picking up that perfect present until the last minute. Or, as Dec. 25 nears, we just happen to see something that our spouse, parents, children or best fiend would absolutely love. So, since we seem to be perpetually logged in, we click on it and we're done. Unless our clicking leads to identity theft. Beyond... Read more →
Gift cards are great presents for family and friends. There's no worrying about sizes or misinterpreted wish list hints. Gift cards, however, are not an option to pay your taxes. That fact hasn't stopped con artists. The Internal Revenue Service says tax scams involving the prepaid pieces of plastic presents are on the rise. The tax agency says it has received many reports of taxpayers being asked to pay a fake tax bill through the purchase of gift cards. Breaking down the con: The tax scammers tend to follow the same basic script, tweaking it as needed when marks get... Read more →
Law enforcement officers across five U.S. federal agencies successfully concluded a four-month investigation this month with the arrest of 281 people allegedly involved in global email scams. The scams, officially known as Business Email Compromise (BEC) schemes, are designed to intercept and hijack wire transfers from businesses and individuals, including many senior citizens. Most of the alleged cyber criminals, 167, were arrested in Nigeria. Insert your own fraudulent prince email comments here. Another 74 people in the United States were taken into custody. The remaining arrests were made in France, Ghana, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Turkey and the United Kingdom.... Read more →
The Trump Administration currently is embroiled in a whistleblower controversy. But another situation where a witness to tax wrongdoing — not any alleged Donald J. Trump activity! — has worked out much more satisfactorily. A $11.5 million award has been presented to a person whose information led to the government collecting over $44.4 million in taxes, penalties and interest, according to the whistleblower attorneys involved in the case. In announcing the award, attorneys Stephen M. Kohn of the Washington, D.C. firm of Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto and Dean Zerbe of the Houston-based firm Zerbe, Miller, Fingeret, Frank & Jadav, lauded... Read more →
Yo ho, all ye salty sea dogs and scalawags. Just a quick reminder on this annual Talk Like a Pirate Day that the Internal Revenue Service wants its cut of your ill-gotten gains, be they pillaged pirate loot or otherwise criminally obtained. Click image to watch the ESPN ad. I know Andrew McCutchen is no longer a Pittsburgh Pirate, but the daring attack the former MLB National League MVP and his crew of sports team buccaneer mascots launched on an ESPN meeting back in 2013 still is one of my favorite television ads. And while Cutch, who's now plays for... Read more →
Al "Scarface" Capone at his sentencing for tax evasion. Back in the Prohibition Era, federal agents — notably those from the Internal Revenue Service — took down the notorious gangster. The tax agency's Criminal Investigation agents are celebrating their 100th birthday this year. (Photo courtesy All That's Interesting: 25 Al Capone Facts) The United States' tax system is based on the premise that all income is taxable, including illegally earned income. Our tax system also relies on the voluntary reporting of that income, including ill-gotten gains. But human nature being what it is, that doesn't always happen, even with legally... Read more →
Ransomware has evolved over the last three decades from a targeted cyber attack distributed on literal floppy discs to a major electronic security crisis for individuals, companies and governments. This type of malware typically locks out computer users and locks down their systems until the cyber hijackers are paid to return access to the information. In 2017, WannaCry ransomware went global, infecting more than 200,000 computers across 150 countries. Most recently, almost two dozen Texas towns were victims of a coordinated attack. The Lone Star State electronic lockouts follow patterns set by ransomware demands in Florida, Maryland and New York.... Read more →
This February 2016 photo on Twitter of Donald J. Trump signing a tax return is one of the few, and unrevealing, looks we've gotten of his federal filings. The focus of Donald J. Trump and his White House change quickly. Issues that were boiling over just days ago quickly get pushed to a back burner by something else that's hotter. But some of those old topics are still simmering. And one of them, Trump's tax returns, saw the heat turned up a bit recently. It was, however, a former college student, not Trump, who was put on the hot spot.... Read more →