Mike Mozart via Flickr CC In April 2019, the online investigative news site Pro Publica revealed that some major tax software companies who were part of the Internal Revenue Service Free File partnership instead used computer code to funnel taxpayers to their products' paid filing options. State officials soon started their own investigations into the tax preparation marketing tactic. The following year, Intuit, the corporate parent of the popular TurboTax tax prep program, reached a settlement agreement with all 50 states (via 49 state Attorneys General and the Hawai'i Office of Consumer Protection), and the District of Columbia. That deal... Read more →
Web/Tech
Young woman getting ready to record an online video. (Photo by George Milton) Being an influencer apparently isn't all it's cracked up to be, especially when the tax collector gets involved. Sure, some of those ubiquitous TikTok videos are just for fun. Others, however, can make big bucks for their online creators. That happens when the viral stars are paid influencers. In most cases, the influencers work as independent contractors for the companies they endorse. SE and income tax due: This self-employed status, reminds the Internal Revenue Service, means the online promoters must pay self-employment (SE) tax in addition to... Read more →
Artificial intelligence has long been a part of our lives, although most of that has been in popular culture depictions. The recalcitrant Hal who wouldn't open the pod bay doors in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner's deadly replicants evolved into Star Trek's more loveable Commander Data and all his TV and movie cousins, like I, Robot's Sonny, Voice-only Samantha in Her, and very human Dorian in Almost Human and Mia and pals in Humans. And bad bots are still out there, at least for entertainment purposes. This month, a warrior nun takes on an all-powerful, and evil, artificial... Read more →
Image via CFI Even before film makers began sticking extra scenes at the end of credits, I sat in the darkened theater until the last credit rolled. I do the same when I screen movies and television shows at home … when I can. As I tweeted today, I'd love it if streamers used an artificial intelligence (AI) program to note that I like to watch full show openings. And recaps. And all the closing credits. OK, not so much the information about who's dubbing the actors when the shows are streamed in other countries, but I do use that... Read more →
The IRS has implemented a document upload process to deal with certain tax notices that looks so easy, you shouldn't need your cat's, or any other, help to use it. (Photo by Ruca Souza) I've spent the last few days online, downloading documents we need to file our tax return, which I'll eventually do electronically. I am not alone. More of us handle most of our lives' issues online. In addition to taxes, we shop, bank, watch entertainment programs, and communicate with friends and family digitally. Now the Internal Revenue Service has expanded our electronic tax interaction options to help... Read more →
If you've missed me, it's because the hubby and I are among the 150,000 households without electricity. Then our cell service went all wonky and I couldn't hotspot. Plus, it seems really cold temps do a number on all types of batteries. I don't want to waste either computer or phone batteries, but I was able to update the ol' blog's February tax moves sidebar, over there to the right. More on this short month's tax task and, well, more tax stuff, as soon as we get full power restored. And my fingers thaw. For others in our same frigid... Read more →
Ice image by Scott Rodgerson via UNSPLASH No, not the slamming of Austin government and utility officials noted in the Tweet below, although the local newspaper did that. What happened was that the hubby and I were among the 170,000+/- Austin Energy customers who lost power. For almost four and a half days. In a rare front-page editorial, @statesman sharply criticizes the city and Austin Energy response to this week’s ice storm. “Public transparency during a massive power outage allows people to make potentially life-saving decisions.”https://t.co/thMtIN8rUW pic.twitter.com/IRySYh1F9o — Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) February 3, 2023 During the Texas grid collapse and... Read more →
Nothing ever disappears on the internet. Even, or especially, tax related posts. Take the bad legal take on taxes that tops this post. It was retweeted on Sunday (Dec. 11) by, you guessed it, Bad Legal Takes. But there's no indication of when Dave Champion originally blasted out his bad tax advice. It might have been before he was barred by a federal court in 2012 from promoting a tax fraud scheme. Or maybe he's back, since this Tweet apparently went up in October. His books also are still for sale online. Either way, that item this weekend spurred a... Read more →
Technology is great, except when it isn't. And technology can be potentially dangerous, especially when taxes are involved. We all know that our tax data is a prime target for crooks. They can use the information on our 1040s to file fake returns and too often, despite improved Internal Revenue Service security measures, collect fraudulent refunds. They also can use the info on our tax paperwork — earnings, investments, Social Security numbers for us and our family members — to steal our identities and ruin us financially. And now we've learned that major tax software and e-filing companies have been... Read more →
We depend on our smartphones more than ever. They've made texting, especially among younger device owners, the preferred way to communicate. Crooks know this, too. Including tax identity thieves. The Internal Revenue Service says it's seen a recent rash of tax-related texting scams. These latest schemes, known as smishing because they use SMS (short message service) or MMS (multimedia messaging service), look like they are coming from the IRS. Don't fall for these fake IRS texts, which the tax agency says have increased exponentially this year. Exponential fake tax texts: So far in 2022, the IRS has identified and reported... Read more →
Huell (right) and Patrick, henchmen for AMC's "criminal" criminal lawyer Saul Goodman, take a short break in a Breaking Bad episode to enjoy the comfort of a huge pile of ill-gotten cash. (Photo courtesy AMC TV) Remember earlier this summer when a South American worker got a paycheck of more than $165 million Chilean pesos, or nearly $184,000 in U.S. dollars? It was a mistake. And while the man reported the overpayment to his supervisors, he also decided to take the money and run. As far as I can tell by surfing the Google machine, the guy's still out there... Read more →
Photo by Jill Burrow We freaked out a bit earlier this summer when we learned a neighbor whose backyard abuts ours was putting in a pool. The good news for us is that it's not a full-sized lap pool. It's one of the area's popular plunge pools, close to their house, with lots of space between it and our property line (and house). And the smaller size meant we didn't have to suffer through a prolonged construction. Despite our property proximity, we're mainly "hi, there" neighbors. Age and family differences — they're younger and have pre-school children — mean we... Read more →
Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash A lot of people are, as the catch phrase says, done with COVID. They've returned to the office, sent their youngsters to classrooms, and are spending free time at events filled with other people. But there's still something to be said for remote connections. Or at least that's the thinking of the Internal Revenue Service's Independent Office of Appeals. COVID prompted, but liked: During the height of the coronavirus in 2020-21, IRS Appeals expanded access to video conferences. Taxpayers were able to make their cases remotely, visually sharing documents without going in person to... Read more →
UPDATE, Jan. 11, 2023: Computer incidents made today a bad day to fly in the United States and Canada, or try to send international mail in the United Kingdom. But those crashes make it a good day to double check your personal and business cyber security plans. The IRS has some tips and guidance for tax professionals' data reliability and protection. The Internal Revenue Service relies on taxpayers and tax professionals to help ensure that our national tax system is secure. These efforts are particularly critical as the federal tax agency goes more electronic. It's also a legal requirement for... Read more →
Photo by Karolina Grabowska Cryptocurrencies are going through a rough patch, at least as far as the investment world is concerned. But devotees of the virtual assets insist they are here to stay, and that general acceptance of digital currency as payments for retail purchases is on the way. A recent survey seems to support that position. Widespread retail crypto payments expected soon: A majority of U.S. retailers expect digital currency payments to be the norm in the next five years, according to a study released last month by Deloitte in collaboration with PayPal. The study's poll in December 2021... Read more →
U.S. Department of the Treasury building, Washington, D.C. On March 9, President Joe Biden signed an executive order calling for a study of digital currencies. Advocates of regulating digital assets immediately pounced on the order. They viewed it as a bureaucratic move that would delay what they see as necessary government oversight of the expanding digital financial world. They were partially right. Even though the order, titled "Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets," directed agencies across the federal government to produce reports on digital currencies and consider new regulations, not much has happened, at least publicly. Until now. The Treasury... Read more →
June 14, 2022, at 6:45 a.m. That's the precise point from which the Internal Revenue Service will never be the same. Darren Guillot, IRS Deputy Commissioner of Small Business/Self Employed Collection & Operations Support, offered that assessment today in announcing the agency's expansion of artificial intelligence voice bots. That date and time was when the agency flipped the switch on so-called authenticated voice bots. This new artificial intelligence system can complete more elaborate tax paying tasks for taxpayers. More importantly, it allows taxpayers using the bots to avoid the hold times they would have faced if they called an IRS... Read more →
The Internal Revenue Service says that it is "opening mail within normal timeframes and all paper and electronic individual refund returns received prior to April 2021 have been processed if the return had no errors or did not require further review." That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that as of May 14, the IRS also reports on its mission-critical web page that "we had 9.8 million unprocessed individual returns which include returns received before 2022." But the agency also has a bit more good news if you're still waiting on a refund based on your tax year 2021... Read more →
House Oversight Committee members also investigating ID.me contracts, verification methods Photo by cottonbro In early February, the Internal Revenue Service announced plans to transition from ID.me's facial scanning identity verification system. The third-party service's scanning technology raised privacy concerns. A few weeks later, the IRS elaborated on its taxpayer identity process. It said the facial recognition would remain, but as an option, not a requirement. Taxpayers instead could participate in a live, virtual interview to prove they are legitimately opening their own online taxpayer account. The IRS also indicated that it eventually would join other federal agencies in using Login.Gov,... Read more →
Photo by cottonbro from Pexels If you're not comfortable with facial identification being part of the Internal Revenue Service personal taxpayer account creation process, you've now got other options. The tax agency, which earlier this month said it would end the controversial validation system used by contractor ID.me, says you can prove you are you via a live, virtual interview. "No biometric data — including facial recognition — will be required if taxpayers choose to authenticate their identity through a virtual interview," the IRS said in its brief statement announcing the move. Other ID OK options: Or you can wait... Read more →