According to a new Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report, the Internal Revenue Service seems to have an effective process for ensuring that electronic filing provider applicants meet age requirements and have no tax compliance issues. Unfortunately, IRS doesn’t get quite the same high marks for consistency with regard to its ability to verify that new applicants are US citizens or legal aliens authorized to work in United States.

The IRS’s electronic filing (e-file) program enables taxpayers to send their returns to the IRS in an electronic format via an electronic return originator (ERO). As of June 29, 2009, there were 207,419 ERO’s who e-filed about 61 million (66%) of the approximately 92 million e-filed tax returns in 2009.

To become an e-file provider, an applicant must meet required screening and verification checks. Applicants must be US citizens or legal aliens and at least 21 years of age. An applicant who is not an attorney, CPA or enrolled agent must supply a fingerprint card which is used to conduct a criminal background check.

The report found that the IRS also needs to verify that some e-file providers claiming nonprofit status are indeed nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits are excluded from all e-file program requirements and suitability checks that for profits organizations must complete.

The IRS did not verify the nonprofit status of some e-file providers participating in the IRS’s Volunteer Program. The Volunteer Program provides no-cost federal tax preparation and e-filing services to low and moderate income taxpayers who are elderly, disabled or have limited English proficiency. TIGTA also found that the IRS does not always follow its procedures for monitoring e-file providers. These procedures include properly identifying e-file providers for site visits, conducting follow-up visits and reporting trends to the IRS’s Criminal Investigation Division to discuss issues or problems. “Inadequate screening and monitoring increases the risk to both the taxpaying public and the federal government for potential losses associated with unscrupulous e-file providers” said J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

The IRS has agreed with all but one of TIGTA’s six recommendations. It disagreed with the recommendation that it verify citizenship because of concerns that pending legislation mandating e-file for most return preparers would require IRS to modify current citizenship rules. TIGTA said that the IRS should continue to ensure that all US-based e-file providers have a valid Social Security number and pass a citizenship test.

Rizzolo Group has many years experience helping small business owners decrease taxes and improve profitability. You need the right financial data and the right tax preparer who knows accounting bookkeeping, payroll services and gives you timely advice. Rizzolo Group does that!

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In spite of the growth and popularity of limited liability companies, S corporations still remain popular as an option for conducting business. In fact, Internal Revenue Service records indicate that the S corporation is the most popular entity under which to conduct business. In 2009 there were an estimated 2.5 million C corporation income tax returns filed; a figure that has remained relatively stable over the past five years. During that very same five year period, S corporation tax return filings increased from 3.5 million to approximately 4.5 million.

While S corporations must deal with a number of statutory restrictions such as the number of shareholders and types of stock allowed, they also can provide a number of advantages. They follow the general corporate structure with regard to having stockholders, boards of directors and officers, but do not require operating agreements. They can also offer more certainty for shareholders with regard to employment and capital related distributions.

This advantage of the segregation of compensation and capital has been touted as a possible advantage for S corporations in determining how best to structure affairs in the face of the new Medicare taxes passed by Congress this year as part of the new health care legislation. The new Medicare taxes to be imposed on high income earners may be avoided by S corporation shareholder/employees who can effectively limit their compensation amounts by taking part of their compensation as distributions of profit. Other entities will likely have considerable more trouble utilizing this tactic. A similar strategy may assist in avoiding some or all of the 3.8% Medicare tax on investment income as well.

This scenario may not materialize to the extent that it could however. Congress is currently considering subjecting the K-1 income of certain S corporations to self-employment tax; a 15.3% FICA tax currently assessed against partnerships and sole proprietors. This legislation – known as the extenders legislation or HR 4213 – would effectively eliminate any advantage that the S corporation has over partnerships and would saddle S corporations with a significant marginal burden – particularly at a time when small business is being looked at as a generator of jobs growth.

Such a change might not detract much from the attractiveness of the S corporation structure. It would eliminate one key advantage it has over the partnership structure, but then the two forms would be on a more equal footing and many taxpayers may still prefer their pass-through entity to operate in the more familiar corporate structure.

Rizzolo Group has many years experience helping small business owners decrease taxes and improve profitability. You need the right financial data and the right tax preparer who knows accounting bookkeeping, payroll services and gives you timely advice. Rizzolo Group does that!

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Funds can get or break up along with person subject to how clearly they are really made. There are several basic laws of investing which can be adopted so that you can help reduced risk to the investor. These are not fool proof by any extend of the imagination however, many great guidelines to help you protect your hard earned money in addition to investments.

One of the very first items an investor must look into is their maximum intention in relation to investing. A retirement fund is a longer term option, although money for any family trip or perhaps other charge may cause high risk investment such as stocks. The retirement fund can be something as straightforward as an IRA or a number of CDs tucked away inside a bank for two decades as the funds necessary from them will not be required instantly.

Diversification is usually a word that a lot of investors as well as financial advisors usage with valid reason. The old saying goes, “Don’t put all your eggs in a single basket” and this is incredibly true relating to investing. By putting on out investments over different types, the investor can help protect their total net profit should more than one investments tumble through.

A person that spends, such as, in stocks entirely, is counting greatly to the current market not simply remaining steady and also growing, but for no reason falling. The clever investor selects many different CDs, stocks, retirement living records plus mutual funds for you to achieve that balance. This can help to deal with them should any one of the investment bottom out there.

You shouldn’t deviate from your investment system as a result of emotions and sustain an purpose view. By responding impulsively for the reason that a news brief throws you a curve or even the market dips a little bit during the day, it is possible that you’ll be throwing away a profitable long lasting investment due to moment. Keep an eye on the future goal and follow that strategy of selling investments whenever they reach a particular value rather than based on the day to day movements or scars.

Most importantly, the most necessary laws of investing is to be aware of the effect that taxes along with inflation have on the overall bottom line. Taxes creep up with an investor as they aren’t a large sum in the past, for instance a market drop, just in case not watched carefully can put a good dent in any investments in place. Be sure that the earnings which are being recognized are ample to cover not only the taxes and also inflation but are ample to achieve your investments purpose.

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2010 is a great year to die if you have an estate valued at more than one million dollars. That’s because the Senate allowed the estate tax to lapse in 2010. A lapse scheduled as part of the Bush-era tax cuts. It saves heirs a 45% hit by Uncle Sam this year.

Not so for 2011. If Congress doesn’t change the law prior to 2011, the estate tax will come back with a vengeance. Not only will the estate tax be back, the top rate will jump to 55% and the exemption – $3.5 million for 2009 – will be a paltry $1 million. Not only is the estate tax particularly vicious in and of itself, the lowered exemption means that it will affect up to eight times as many estates. For example; on a $5 million estate, the 2011 estate tax would be approximately $2 million.

Senators are divided among three possible solutions to this dilemma. Some favor the pre-Bush rate of %55, some 45% and others support a 35% rate with an increased exemption. Many politicos and those in the tax and accounting industry long expected Congress to address this matter, but political wisdom dictates that estate tax changes are not to be undertaken in election years for fear of angering voters and Hurricane Katrina derailed a 2005 opportunity. As a result, the estate tax has been in limbo this year. Pressure to act is likely to increase after the November elections when Congress is expected to tackle numerous other Bush-era tax breaks including capital gains rates.

As expected, the unknown is creating a nightmare for estate and tax planners as well as taxpayers. Among the unknowns is the failure of the Internal Revenue Service to issue guidance explaining current estate tax law and whether lawmakers will make retroactive changes to the law. Whatever the outcome, few see the zero tax rate persisting for very long because of the Obama administration-s massive debt accumulation. Without knowing what the estate tax is, has been or will be; some planning techniques that will work under one set of conditions may not work well under another.

One chilling potential consequence is that some taxpayers -particularly those close to death – may opt for doctor-assisted suicide prior to the end of this year. Three states – Oregon, Washington and Montana – currently allow some sort of version of the practice. Unfortunately only time will tell.

Rizzolo Group has many years experience helping small business owners decrease taxes and improve profitability. You need the right financial data and the right tax preparer who knows accounting bookkeeping, payroll services and gives you timely advice. Rizzolo Group does that!

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While an excise tax on tanning services was the first health care reform revenue raiser to hit the books, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 also includes new Sec 6041 requirements with respect to reporting of payments made in the course of a payer’s trade or business.

For those of you running to your trusty copy of the IRC, Sec 6041 generally requires information returns to be made by every person (payer) engaged in a trade or business who makes payments (as defined in Sec 6041(a)) in the course of the payer’s trade or business that are in aggregate $600 or more to another person. Broadly, the new requirements (as reported in E@lert earlier this year) expand Sec 6041 information reporting requirements to apply to payments made to corporations and to include certain payments of gross proceeds with respect to property.

In order to provide guidance for the new law, which applies to payments made after December 31, 2011, IRS issued Notice 2010-51 requesting public input. While it proposed regs exempting payment of credit card purchases otherwise reportable under Sec 6050W, the Service did not issue proposed regs for the entire new law; instead opting for an approach that allows more flexibility. The notice allows for a 90-day comment period closing on September 29, 2010.

While the National Association of Enrolled Agents will be providing comments on behalf of the enrolled agent community, individual EAs are also welcome to provide individual comments. Should you be interested in providing comments, IRS has posted the following instructions on its website illustrating three methods of submission:

Email comments to: Notice.Comments@irscounsel.treas.gov. Include “Notice 2010-51″ in the subject line. Mail comments to: Internal Revenue Service, CC:PA:LPD:PR ( Notice 2010-51), Room 5203, P.O. Box 7604, Ben Franklin Station, Washington, DC 20044. Hand deliver comments to: CC:PA:LPD:PR ( Notice 2010-51), Courier’s Desk, Internal Revenue Service, 1111 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Also, the government relations team would be interested in receiving a copy of your comments. Please copy them at governmentrelations@naea.org. One suggestion, your response will be most effective if you focus on two things: the five specific questions on page four of the notice and real world examples. IRS attorneys, by and large, do not have the wealth of practical experience that enrolled agents have and that’s why the real world examples are so welcome.

Rizzolo Group has many years experience helping small business owners decrease taxes and improve profitability. You need the right financial data and the right tax preparer who knows accounting bookkeeping, payroll services and gives you timely advice. Rizzolo Group does that!

www.rizzologroup.net

The City of London is considered by many to be one of the finance capitals of the World, second only to Wall Street. Whether you are in Insurance, Banking or the Stock Market you deal with International businesses, from China to Bermuda to Sweden. A job in London’s financial district offers a wealth of opportunities.

However, due to the bad press that the ‘Bankers’ have been receiving and the limitations on bonuses which are being discussed, this career path may not seem as lucrative as it once was. Nevertheless, one big advantage of greater accountability and regulation is the need for better internal systems and management. Therefore, now is the time to get an audit job in London. Audit jobs in London are everywhere from the more junior roles to experienced professionals to Managers and VPs.

So, why London?
Apart from the career opportunities which London offers, there are a multitude of reasons why you should consider audit jobs in London. As with most capital cities London is a bustling, diverse place with something for just about everyone. Here are some top reasons to consider London for your next audit job:

Accommodation
London has a notorious reputation for being an expensive place to live and it certainly can be. However, there are also more affordable areas within easy commuting distance to central London. Whatever level you are at in your auditing career you will be able to find suitable housing, whether it is a luxury townhouse in Kensington or a trendy studio flat in Acton.

Travel
London has a very good transport service with the Underground, Network Rail, Buses, Trams and River Boats between them running 24/7. You can not only get around London you can also get easily to all major UK cities and take a direct train into France, Belgium and The Netherlands. It is the perfect base from which to explore Europe during your weekends.

Entertainment
Robbie Williams could easily have been speaking on behalf of London when he said ‘let me entertain you’ and that is exactly what London will do. Whether you like going to the theatre, comedy, musicals, music events, sporting events, dancing, driving, art, museums or anything else you can think of, there will be somewhere in London that you can do it. There is also a large amount of free entertainment available, for example many of the museums and art galleries and some music events. You can use various London events websites to keep track of what is going on where and how much it costs.

History
London is a very old city steeped in history. You can visit historical sites from the Tower of London to Shakespeare’s Globe to Westminster Abbey and learn about the historical events which shaped London into the cosmopolitan city it is today.

Food
Having such a diverse population means that you can find some of the best food from just about every cuisine in the World, in London. This ranges from the value ‘All you can eat’ restaurants in China Town to luxury Celebrity Chef’s restaurants such as Marco Pierre White’s Wheelers. There are many London foodie websites which will help you to find the best restaurant within your budget. You are also likely to have business dinners at superb restaurants in the City of London.

Ultimately London is a great place to live and work and will enable you to grow your career and experience Europe with relative ease. So when you are considering the location of your next job, consider London.

John McE writes articles on a number of subjects including international audit jobs opportunities.

Have a look at the latest audit jobs in London.

Anyone who has worked in the industry will tell you that one of the most arduous tasks associated with running a retail store is performing regular inventory checks. These are often performed outside of normal working hours and for the uninformed, essentially involve counting every asset within the store in order to record any losses. It can be a painstaking process, made even more lengthy and frustrating if asset labels aren’t attached to the majority of stock.

In the world of retail, managing stock levels is an important part of ensuring that a business is profitable and efficient. Audits and inventory checks are a necessity for every business as they guarantee that a company does not get complacent regarding how well it looks after its goods and does not advertise or attempt to sell items that it no longer owns. Failure to amend data on stock levels can result in embarrassment for companies. For instance, if a customer phones up to see whether you have something in stock, your database could suggest that you do, only for you to find when the customer arrives that the item is nowhere to be seen. Asset labels can help you keep an eye on stock levels more effectively.

When it comes to conducting an inventory, it is important that items of stock have an individual code within the store in order to keep your database updated on the availability of particular items. By printing and applying asset labels to each object, this process can be made a lot simpler. To audit your store and ascertain what has been lost or gained since your last inventory, all you need do is scan each individual label, rather than counting by hand or typing in UPC codes.

A well conducted inventory is important to identify losses, which can help you to combat them in the long run. Asset labels can act as a deterrent to thieves as they demonstrate that a company closely monitors their stock levels. This is certainly the case as they allow a business to see which particular products are being lost to thieves. This can give them an opportunity to take additional security measures to deter thieves from targeting these products.

Ultimately everything has to be labelled as the retail world would be chaos without the level of stock control organisation that labels provide. Without them, distinguishing one product from another can prove to be difficult, making retail management even more of a headache.

Dominic Donaldson is a labellign expert with many years of experience in the labelling industry. Find out more about asset labels at http://www.tollgatelabels.co.uk/

According to a new report by the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), an estimated 1.2 million income tax returns were filed in 2007 by individuals whose wages were earned using another person’s identification number.

Many of the returns that included these wages were filed utilizing the taxpayers’ correct names and social security numbers or individual taxpayer identification numbers (ITIN’s). While this is predominant among illegal aliens, collections activities on the accounts of legitimate identification number holders can create considerable problems for both parties.

The TIGTA report concludes that the Internal Revenue Service does not currently have the resources or ability to identify this type of identity theft. TIGTA investigated this activity after it was apprised that numerous individuals, fraudulently utilizing other people’s Social Security numbers for wage earning purposes, had their wages garnished by IRS due to the delinquent tax accounts of the legitimate holders of said numbers.

ITIN’s are intended to provide tax identification numbers to both resident and nonresident aliens, but do not change an individual’s immigration status. Part of TIGTA’s investigation was to assess whether IRS has policies and procedures to effectively address collection issues relating to ITIN’s.

The analysis found that IRS lacks employee guidelines with regard to assisting the taxpayer whose wages are being attached or the legitimate Social Security number holder who almost certainly is a victim of identity theft.

TIGTA recommendations include updating guidelines for collection issues associated with ITIN’s, alerting taxpayers that their identities most likely have been compromised and matching ITIN returns with their related reporting returns.

Numerous benefits would almost certainly be derived from IRS adopting TIGTA’s recommendations; not the least of which would be the creation of another avenue by which authorities may detect and subsequently deport illegal aliens.

The adoption of said policies would also help prevent taxpayer identity theft, ultimately reduce the demand for IRS resources, reduce the comingling of taxpayer accounts and provide for greater accountability among non-citizens working in this country.

Another consequence of IRS’s seemingly lax oversight of ITIN usage according to the Center for Immigration Studies is the threat to homeland security by not adequately insuring that identification numbers are not issued to terrorist, criminals on the FBI database and those under deportation notices.

Additionally, the Center alleges that IRS subverts immigration law by failing to prevent illegal aliens from receiving tax benefits to which they are not entitled and withheld from public review data that is relevant to determining the economic contribution of illegal aliens to US society.

Rizzolo Group has many years experience helping small business owners decrease taxes and improve profitability. You need the fight financial data and the right tax preparer who knows accounting bookkeeping, payroll services and gives you timely advice. Rizzolo Group does that!

www.rizzologroup.net

Every business is looking at how to improve their bottom line, whether is by reducing costs or increasing sales improvements can normally be made just by looking at what your current performance is.

One of the first places to look for information is in your accounting software. If your business uses an accounting software package to track your sales and expenses and banking that means that you have a wealth of information to work with to see how you can improve your bottom line.
This information will give you an accurate history of how you have been performing and from those previous trends you can get a better idea of where sales come from and what can be done to improve them. We will discuss some basic things that you can look at to see how you can start to improve your business.

Who are your top five customers in sales?
Most businesses will have a small number of customers that they deal with for most of their turnover. Do you know which customers they are? It could be the case that you will have customers that you will do a lot of work for but actually they may not get you much in the way of revenue. These customers may be a lot of work and at the end of the day not generate much profit. This means that they may not be as important as you think due to the amount of labour involved.

Who are your top five customers with regards to margin?
Businesses normally sell a range of products or services and they will have different price structures and costs, this means that some of your products will have a better margin. This mean that the gross profit you get from some sales will be a lot higher than others.

Looking at these two things could lead to insights that you may not have noticed about your business. Do you have customers that you spend a lot of time with but they do not purchase as much as other clients? This means that maybe you should spend some more time focussing on some of the other clients to see if you can improve their sales. If you have customers that buy a large amount without much encouragement from you could you increase the amount they buy by spending some extra time on them?

With looking at the margin of customers there may be some services that you offer that may give you a very low return. Are there other services or products that you could offer them that offer you a higher return? Are your prices a lot lower than other businesses and should they be increased to match what the market rate is?

These two aspects of who your top customers are and which ones have the best margin are very important tools for your business. They will offer insights into how your business is actually performing and who your most important customers actually are.

I am an MYOB software consultant helping businesses in Christchurch New Zealand get the most of their accounting software. With over four years experience in working with the software I can provide solutions on how to make the software fit your business and improve your productivity. Click here for MYOB Support in Christchurch

As of February the Internal Revenue Service has stepped up audits in an effort to increase its collections from taxpayers. Among the scheduled increase is a plan to audit 6,000 US companies in an effort to determine whether they have paid all of their required payroll taxes. These taxes fund Social Security and Medicare.

The audits, a component in the first statistical analysis since 1984, are designed to investigate the frequency with which companies misclassify workers in order to save money by not paying their share of FICA taxes, failing to pay taxes on fringe benefits such as bonuses and employee personal use of company vehicles and other payroll related obligations. IRS says that the companies will be randomly chosen.

“We think that businesses have changed significantly over the last 25 years,” said John Tuzynski, chief of employment tax operations at the IRS, in an interview on September 18, 2009. “This will help us find out where there are real issues that we have to address.”

Based on the 1984 data, the Treasury Department estimated in 2005 that US companies underpay employer taxes by around $14 billion annually. A particular area of concern is the classification of workers as independent contractors rather than employees.

Echoing the IRS’s sentiment, the Government Accountability Office said in August, 2009 that employee misclassification could be a significant problem with adverse consequences because it cheats the government out of tax revenue and employees out of labor protection. Typically, independent contractors do not qualify for benefits such as health insurance, overtime pay and unemployment insurance.

Mr. Tuzynski has aid that the audits are to be undertaken over a three year period and would also focus on S corporation officer salaries, company cars and corporate owned vacation properties. Most of the audits will be held in person; however IRS will also use internal information as a supplement. Mr. Tuzynski also said “We’re going to try to make it as least burdensome as we can.”

Employers are required to pay half of their employees’ FICA taxes which translate to 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare. These percentages are generally calculated using the employees’ gross wages. Employers are also required to pay both federal and state unemployment taxes on behalf of their workers. Independent contractors are required to pay the entire levy themselves.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 10.3 million workers, or about 7.4% of the workforce, were classified as independent contractors in 2005. It is unknown how many of these were misclassified.

Rizzolo Group has many years experience helping small business owners decrease taxes and improve profitability. You need the fight financial data and the right tax preparer who knows accounting bookkeeping, payroll services and gives you timely advice. Rizzolo Group does that!

www.rizzologroup.net