tax resolution – Page 2 – Your #1 source for tax reduction strategies.

Business Taxes, Family Taxes, General Information, General Tax Topics, Self Employed, Small Business, Tax Debt, Tax Deductions, Tax Reduction, Uncategorized

Now that you’ve filed, do you need to tell your employer to withhold more or less income to pay your 2019 taxes?

April 19, 2019April 19, 2019 Howard Tax Prep LLC

Reprinted with changes, edits, & permission by the IRS.

Was your refund lower than expected, or did you have an unexpected tax bill when you filed this year? In our south loop Chicago tax preparation office, we saw a slight decrease in income tax refunds for personal 1040 taxes. On the other hand, many of our Chicago business tax preparation clients saw a decrease in their taxes dues thanks to the Tax Cut and Jobs Act. If you are concerned about your tax bill for the 2019 tax year, there are steps that you can take steps to make sure your federal income tax withholding is on the right track for this year.
Checking your withholding at the beginning of the year helps ensure you don’t have too little or too much withheld from your paychecks throughout the year. This is especially
important if you changed your withholding in 2018. A mid-year withholding change in 2018 can have a different full-year impact in 2019. You should also check your withholding any time your personal or financial information changes. Use the Withholding Calculator to help you decide whether you need to change your
withholding.

Federal taxes operate on a pay-as-you-go basis. This means that you need to pay most of your tax during the year, as you earn the income. Paying too much tax throughout the year will result in a refund while not paying enough can lead to a tax bill, penalties and interest when you file. One way to avoid owing a balance is to correctly calculate and adjust how much tax you should have withheld from your wages. Use the Withholding Calculator to help you decide whether you need to change your withholding.

Another option is to consider making quarterly estimated tax payments. Those who
don’t pay taxes through withholding, or don’t pay enough tax that way, may still use the Withholding Calculator to determine if they have to pay estimated tax quarterly during the year to the IRS. Those who are self-employed generally pay tax this way. See Form
1040-ES, Estimated Taxes for Individuals, for details. Visit IRS.gov/payasyougo to learn more about withholding and to determine if you should be making estimated tax payments. You are in the driver’s seat. Check your withholding today.

Although we’ve given you the basics, this is not an all-inclusive article. Should you have tax debt help questions, need Chicago business tax preparation, business entity creation, business insurance, or business compliance assistance please contact us online, or call our office toll free at 1-855-743-5765 or locally in Chicago or Indiana at 1-708-529-6604. Make sure to join our newsletter for more tips on reducing taxes, and increasing your wealth.

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Business Taxes, Family Taxes, General Information, General Tax Topics, Self Employed, Small Business, Tax Debt, Tax Deductions, Tax Reduction, Uncategorized

Owe taxes? What to do when you owe the IRS.

April 10, 2019 Howard Tax Prep LLC

Listen, I’ve been there. You know the place where you’re afraid to open the notice from the IRS because you think they are coming for your right arm and both legs? The place where you KNEW that you should have been paying more through out the year, but you needed your money, so you chose go exempt from Federal taxes? Or how about the place where you thought you were paying enough to the IRS, and to your surprise you wound up with a tax bill! Listen to this quick podcast below by clicking the play button, or listen on iTunes by searching “small biz tax lady.”

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I talk about if you should file, your payment options, and why you need to read your IRS notices. If you have a more complicated case (such as refund taken due to spousal debt, IRS wage garnishments, or a pending levy, please call us immediately at 855-743-5765 or email me directly at thoward@howardtaxprep.com

Have a podcast idea? Send me your suggestions at podcast@howardtaxprep.com or inbox me.

Family Taxes, General Information, General Tax Topics, Tax Deductions, Uncategorized

If You Hear This Advice on How to Cut Your Taxes, Stay Away

March 18, 2019 Howard Tax Prep LLC

When it comes to tax advice, be careful whom you trust. In our south loop of Chicago tax preparation office, we hear a number of tax tips for small business owners that aren’t based in tax law.

There is some remarkably bad and wrong and hazardous-to-your-health information out there that—despite being repeatedly debunked—just will not go away. Some of those ideas are clearly erroneous, but others can snag even very bright people.

Consider the case of Carter White Rae, a dentist in Michigan. He followed some bad advice and ended up with a bill from the government for over half a million dollars—plus a 45-month jail sentence.

Remember: You may be a logical person, but tax law is not always logical. Even if something makes sense to you—or sounds like it’s the way the law should work—it may still be completely wrong.

That’s why you have me in your corner. And that’s why you should ask me before you take an action that seems too good to be true.

The most dangerous tax strategies are the ones that lead you to believe you do not have to pay any tax at all. Known in IRS lingo as “tax protestor” arguments, they claim that by virtue of little-known quirks in the law or because of never-correctly-ratified amendments, you can somehow sidestep all U.S. tax requirements.

No matter how intricate those arguments can be, they all suffer from the same problem: The IRS and courts reject them. The government has already ruled against them, and if you use one of those arguments, the government will eventually catch up with you and demand its money. It’s a question of when, not if.

Take It from the IRS

The IRS was nice enough to compile a list of arguments that it has heard before and will categorically reject:

The filing of a tax return or the payment of federal income tax is voluntary.
Taxpayers can reduce their federal tax liability by filing a “zero return” that reports zero income and zero tax liability.
Compensation received for personal services isn’t income.
Military retirement pay isn’t income.
Only foreign-source income is taxable.
The IRS isn’t a U.S. agency.
The taxpayer isn’t a citizen and therefore isn’t subject to federal income taxes.
The taxpayer isn’t a “person” under the tax law and therefore isn’t subject to federal income taxes.
Various constitutional amendments permit the taxpayer to avoid taxes.
Form 1040’s instructions and regulations don’t have an OMB control number as required by the federal Paperwork Reduction Act.

Penalties and Prison

The IRS believes that tax protestor claims are “frivolous” and will have no mercy on you if you rely on one to avoid paying taxes. The courts tend to agree and uphold those penalties—and sometimes impose prison time as well.

Whenever you “willfully attempt to evade or defeat” your taxes, you’re looking at fines of up to $100,000 ($500,000 for corporations) and prison time of up to five years. That’s on top of having to pay the taxes due, the prosecution’s costs, and any other penalties.

How to Spot Bad Strategies

With tax law as complicated as it is, how are you supposed to tell the difference between a legitimate tax reduction strategy and a baseless idea that will get you in trouble?

The main problem with tax protestor arguments is that they claim to let you ignore the plain language of the law—simply by saying that the IRS isn’t legitimate or that you aren’t subject to the rules.

Real tax strategies work within the law, finding deductions or ways to reduce your income that the tax code or IRS have explicitly blessed—rather than going around the law or ignoring it.

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Business Taxes, General Information, General Tax Topics, Self Employed, Small Business, Tax Deductions, Uncategorized

How the 90-Day Mileage Log Rule Works for You

February 18, 2019 Howard Tax Prep LLC

Often in an IRS audit, the examiner will ask for your mileage log at the beginning of the audit. If you do not have a mileage log, then you are in danger of losing more than just vehicle deductions. Think about it. If you don’t have a log for mileage, what is the IRS examiner going to think about your other records? Right—he or she is going to think you are a bad taxpayer with bad tax records who needs extra scrutiny.

The IRS says that you may keep an adequate record for part of a tax year and use that part-year record to substantiate your vehicle’s business use for the entire year. To use a sample record, you need to prove that your sample is representative of your use for the year.

By using your appointment book as the basis for your mileage, you not only build great business-use proof, but you also do a great job of showing that your sample vehicle record mirrors your general appointments during the year. (If you are using a mileage app, synchronize the app results with the appointment book.)

The IRS illustrates two possible sampling methods:

One identical week each month (for example, the third week of each month)
Three consecutive months

We don’t recommend the one-same-week-each-month method because it is difficult to start and stop a record-keeping process. (Think about how hard it would be to create a habit, undo it, and then create it again—every month.)

For this reason, the three-month log is the superior alternative. Before getting into the three-month method, we should note that once you have done three months, you are in the habit. You might find it easier to continue all year, rather than stop this year and then have to start again next year.

Here are the basics of how the IRS describes the three-month test:

The taxpayer uses her vehicle for business use.
She and other members of her family use the vehicle for personal use.
The taxpayer keeps a mileage log for the first three months of the taxable year, and that log shows that 75 percent of the vehicle’s use is for her business.
Invoices and paid bills show that her vehicle use is about the same throughout the year.

According to this IRS regulation, this three-month sample is adequate to prove 75 percent business use.

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Fact check me with IRS Regulation 1.274-5T(c)(3)(ii)(A).

Business Taxes, Family Taxes, Tax Debt, Tax Deductions, Tax Reduction, Uncategorized

CAN I FILE BANKRUPTCY FOR TAX DEBT?

January 30, 2019January 30, 2019 Howard Tax Prep LLC

Once the IRS assesses a tax bill, it generally has 10 years to collect that amount before the statute of limitations expires. Holy smokes! That’s a long time to have a creditor chasing you! And this isn’t any ordinary creditor. The IRS has a lot of power that it can use to collect your late payments. The IRS can garnish wages, file a notice of federal tax lien, and empty your bank account.

If your tax bill has exploded beyond what you can pay, you’re probably already feeling the hot breath of the IRS. At this point, you need to consider your options for how to reduce or eliminate your tax bill.

If you have thought about bankruptcy, you need to be aware of its limitations. Tax debts are particularly sticky—many of them stay with you even after the bankruptcy process is complete. And it’s important to know that bankruptcy is not your only recourse. The IRS gives you four avenues of relief to help you get out of tax debt that you can read about here. Depending on your circumstances, one or more of those IRS methods could entirely eliminate that horrible tax cloud hanging over your head, or you can look into filing bankruptcy.

It is important to note that bankruptcy is not a simple process and has many lingering effects, such as the potentially decade-long hit to your credit. However, bankruptcy can be the perfect tool in the right situation—and it can permanently eliminate some of your income tax liabilities, including penalties and interest.

The following rules determine whether you can discharge your income tax debt in bankruptcy. You have to meet all three rules to qualify:

RULE #1: Debts must be more than three years old. You have to wait at least three years after the filing deadline for the tax years at issue (normally April 15 for calendar year taxpayers) before you file your bankruptcy petition. In other words, if you file your petition on April 15, 2016, you can discharge tax debts for tax years 2013 and earlier. But note that an extension pushes your filing deadline to October 15. So if you got an extension in 2013, you must wait until October 15, 2016, to file your bankruptcy petition before you can discharge tax debts from 2013.

RULE #2: You must file all tax returns. You have to wait at least two years after you filed your tax return before you file your bankruptcy petition. So what happens if you didn’t file a return for a year? To discharge that debt, you must file that return now and then wait for two years before you file for bankruptcy.

RULE #3: Wait eight months after IRS assessment. You must wait at least 240 days after the IRS assessed your taxes before you file the bankruptcy petition.

As you can see, timing is important. If you want to ensure that the bankruptcy proceeding will clear your tax debts, you must:

Make sure you have filed all of your returns.
Wait until enough time has passed so that you qualify for relief.
Commit No fraud. Bankruptcy will not discharge your debt if you committed fraud or willfully evaded taxes.

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