Archive for Individual Taxes – Page 59

Missouri Tax Amnesty Program Now in Progress

We’re about halfway through the Missouri Tax Amnesty Program, an initiative to help taxpayers who have fallen behind on their State taxes to settle their accounts free of interest and penalty. Sandy Furuya, Senior Accounting Manager with [Wamhoff Accounting Services], explains the program and what you need to do if you think you may owe back taxes to the State of Missouri.

The Program:

  • The Missouri Tax Amnesty Program began on September 1st and runs until November 30, 2015.
  • During this period, taxpayers who owe back taxes may complete a form and submit their payment without having to pay interest or penalties which are typically applicable for late tax payments.

Eligibility

  • Most taxpayers who owe back taxes are eligible. The offer is good for all types of taxes, including both individual and business tax liabilities for periods owed prior to 12/31/2014
  • Many have already received an “Amnesty Eligibility Notice” providing the total tax due, and the amount of interest and penalty that may be waived.
  • If you think you owe back taxes but did not receive the notice, visit dor.mo.gov/amnesty to download the Form 5607 application.
  • If your account is pending in a civil, criminal, or bankruptcy court, you are ineligible for the program.
  • If your account is under criminal investigation by the MO DOR, you are ineligible for the program.

The Process

  • If you received your form in the mail, review the information, sign the form, and remit with payment no later than November 30, 2015.
  • If you downloaded the form from the DOR website, fill in the requested information and remit with payment by November 30, 2015
  • Various forms of payment are accepted, including debit or credit cards. Fees will apply if you pay with a debit or credit card.
  • By participating in the program, you agree to remain compliant with all Missouri taxes for a period of eight years. If you fail to remain compliant, the waived interest and penalties will immediately become due.

IRS Tax Notices

Each year the IRS mails millions of notices and letters to taxpayers. If you receive a notice from the IRS this is what you should do.

  1. Don’t ignore it! You can respond to most IRS notices quickly and easily.  It is important that you reply right away! More often than not the IRS expects correspondence from you within thirty days!
  2. Focus on the Issue: IRS notices usually deal with a specific issue about your tax return or tax account.  If you look at the explanation on the notice it will explain in detail the differences on our tax return.
  3. Follow Instructions! Read the notice carefully. It will tell you if you need to take any action to resolve the matter.
  4. If it is a correction notice it will state that the IRS corrected your tax return. You should review the information provided and compare it to your tax return.
  5. If you agree with the proposed changes there is no need to reply unless a payment is due. Then remit payment as soon as possbile.
  6. If you don’t agree it’s very important that you respond to the IRS. Write a letter that explains why you don’t agree.  Make sure to inlcude information and any documents you want the IRS to consider. Allow at least 30 days for a reponse from the IRS.
  7. Keep in mind that once you receive a notice it is not necessary to visit your local branch. Most notices can be handled with written correspondence.

If you play the ponies, play cards or like to play the slots, your gambling winnings are taxable.  You must report them on your tax return.  Here are some tips that can help you at tax time next year.

  • Income from gambling includes winnings from the lottery, horse racing and casino’s. It also includes cash and non-cash prizes. You must report the fair market value of non-cash prizes like cars and trips.
  • If you win the payer may give you a form W-2G as well as send a copy to the IRS. The payer must issue the form based on the type of gambling, the amount that you won and other factors. In Missouri most establishments will withhold state withholding from your winnings.
  • You report your winnings for the tax year on your return as “other income”. You must report all gambling winnings as income even if you don’t receive a W-2G.
  • You can deduct your gambling losses on Schedule A. You can only deduct losses up to your winnings.

For more information please contact Wamhoff Accounting at 636-573-1212

It is never too early to begin preparing for the tax filing season. Individuals should be aware of any chances to their tax situation and make changes immediately. Otherwise it could cause major tax consequences.

  1. Have there been any major life events such as marriage, divorce, or the birth of a child? These are all changes that will affect your tax situation and should alert you to make changes to your Federal and State Form W-4s as soon as possible with your employer.
  2. Do you have a child starting college? Besides this being a major event in the family; the person who claims the student may be eligible to claim education credits. Adjusting the federal withholdings for the future tax years would increase the take home pay each pay period vs. a large refund at tax time. T His makes sense since you may be assisting with that education bill.
  3. Maybe you or your spouse is going back to college? Depending on the circumstances, there may be tax credits available as well for you.
  4. Consider preparing a tax projection if your income has substantially changed from the prior year. THis can avoid surprises during tax time and also provide you with opportunities to do some tax planning and decrease you income tax liability.
  5. If you are planning on increasing your charitable contribution or moving soon, plan for those itemized deductions. An increase in charitable contributions can decrease your tax liability. If your move involves a new home, the increase in the mortgage interest will also decrease your tax liability. Likewise if you plan on decreasing these items; your tax liability will increase.

For more information about these items or any questions about the next tax filing season, please contact our staff at Wamhoff Accounting Services. We are ready to assist you.

In June, the Internal Revenue Service joined with representatives of tax preparation and software firms, tax financial product processors, and state tax administrators to announce a new collaborative effort to combat identity theft refund fraud and protect the taxpayers.

This will include validating taxpayer and tax return information at the time of filing.  This effort will increase information being shared between industry and governments.  There will be standardized sharing of suspected identity fraud information and analytics from the tax industry to ID fraud schemes and locate patterns according to the IRS.

According to the IRS Commissioner John Koskinen “We’ve made tremendous progress, and we will continue these efforts.  Taxpayers filing their tax returns next filing season should have a safer and more secure experience.”

The IRS Commissioner convened a Security Summit on March 19th with CEOs and leaders of private sector firms, and Federal and State tax administrators to discuss ID theft and efforts to stop the fraud.

Three specialized groups were established and during these past months the teams have been working on the following initiatives:

Taxpayer authentication. The industry and government groups identified numerous new data elements that can be shared at the time of filing to help authenticate a taxpayer and detect identity theft refund fraud. The data will be submitted to the IRS and states with the tax return transmission for the 2016 filing season. Some of these issues include, but are not limited to:

  • Reviewing the transmission of the tax return, including the improper and or repetitive use of Internet Protocol numbers, the Internet ‘address’ from which the return is originating.
  • Reviewing computer device identification data tied to the return’s origin.
  • Reviewing the time it takes to complete a tax return, so computer mechanized fraud can be detected.
  • Capturing metadata in the computer transaction that will allow review for identity theft related fraud.

  Fraud identification. The groups agreed to expand sharing of fraud leads. For the first time, the entire tax industry and other parts of the tax industry will share aggregated analytical information about their filings with the IRS to help identify fraud. This post-return filing process has produced valuable fraud information because trends are easier to identify with aggregated data. Currently, the IRS obtains this analytical information from some groups. The expanded effort will ensure a level playing field so everyone approaches fraud from the same perspective, making it more difficult for the perpetration of fraud schemes.

Information assessment. In addition to continuing cooperative efforts, the groups will look at establishing a formalized Refund Fraud Information Sharing and Assessment Center (ISAC) to more aggressively and efficiently share information between the public and private sector to help stop the proliferation of fraud schemes and reduce the risk to taxpayers. This would help in many ways, including providing better data to law enforcement to improve the investigations and prosecution of identity thieves.

Cybersecurity framework. Participants with the tax industry agreed to align with the IRS and states under the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity framework to promote the protection of information technology (IT) infrastructure. The IRS and states currently operate under this standard, as do many in the tax industry.

Taxpayer awareness and communication. The IRS, industry and states agreed that more can be done to inform taxpayers and raise awareness about the protection of sensitive personal, tax and financial data to help prevent refund fraud and identity theft. These efforts have already started, and will increase through the year and expand in conjunction with the 2016 filing season.

Many system and process changes will take effect this summer and fall to be ready for 2016 filing season.  This partnership will also continue as these issues are long-term.

 

Information gathered from IR-2015-87 June 11, 2015

Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act, is also known as Obamacare. Under Obamacare’s individual shared responsibility provision, you must let the IRS know when you file that you had the required minimum essential health care coverage or were exempt. If you have qualified coverage, you’ll get a Form 1095-C from your employer or a Form 1095-B from the insurer. In these cases, you’ll simply check a box on your tax return.

However, if you or anyone in your family doesn’t have the required coverage or aren’t exempt, you’ll have to pay a penalty when you file your return. Both exemption claims and penalty calculations are made on new Form 8965.

Then there’s the premium tax credit. This is a way of helping certain taxpayers pay for required insurance they obtained through a health care exchange. Some individuals got advance payment of this credit when they got coverage.

If you discovered that when you filed your 2014 return that your premium tax credit was off, make sure that doesn’t happen this filing season. Changes in your life affect how much of a health coverage credit you can claim. Report changes to the health care exchange where you purchased coverage as soon as they occur so that your advance credit payments can be adjusted. This will help you avoid getting a smaller refund or owing money that you didn’t expect to owe when you file.

Among the things that could make a tax credit difference are a birth or adoption, marriage or divorce, moving, job change, and increase or decrease in your household income. These changes also may allow you to take advantage of a special enrollment period — 60 days from the date of the life event — during which you can make health care plan changes.

Reference: www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/tax-tips