Those who do casual online sales are concerned that they will get 1099-K forms for aggregate sales of $600 and over, whereas the bright line in prior years was $10,000. Realize that this is not pure profit, since you probably once paid more for the items that you’ve sold. How can you reflect this and...Continue reading

The recent government shutdown of 35 days is either over or has taken an intermission, and the IRS employees have gone back to work. Those employees, however, have returned to more than 5 million pieces of unopened mail. This is according to the National Taxpayer Advocate Service, which estimates that it will take at least...

January 15 – your personal estimated tax payments, Federal employment taxes. January 31 – 1099s and W2s, employer payroll tax returns.

In my opinion, the new tax bill is, on balance, less than optimal. The bill is over 1,000 pages long and has been called “a simplification.” To be very general, here’s what an individual can do now (before December 31): Prepay your 2018 real estate taxes.  This is subject to many restrictions, so call your local tax...Continue reading

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer of October 4, 2017 (page A-12) ” Equifax signed a $ 7.25 million contract last month (Sept) with the IRS to verify taxpayer identities. The no-bid contract is for Equifax to provided the IRS taxpayer and personal identity verification services. The contract stated that Equifax was the ONLY COMPANY CAPABLE...

It’s happened to 3 of my clients this year, most of them physicians.  I go to efile their returns and get a message back that their return has already been submitted to the IRS (and someone else has already received that refund).  Tax fraud is the #1 form of identity theft in the US, or...Continue reading

I always tell my clients to not give any information to those who pose as IRS agents through a phone call or email.  The IRS will never reach out initially this way – the first contact is always via letter. The scammers are very accomplished in their manner, may entice you by showing you that...Continue reading

I’ve just finished with extended corporate and partnership tax returns. I’ll switch into really getting ready for tax season 2018 when I finish preparing extended individual tax returns by October 15. The first thing I’ll try to do is hire experienced office staff with good work ethic (the last one “went out to lunch” and...Continue reading