Tax Lawyer's Blog

Two weeks ago in a roundtable talk sponsored by The National Academy of Social Insurance Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institute said the unemployment payroll tax is a scandalously regressive tax on workers.
He’s right, except for one tiny problem: The unemployment tax is not a tax on workers at all.
Burtless glosses over this critical fact in his diatribe against what he calls the unemployment insurance payroll [...]

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WebCPA reports that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration says that weaknesses in the IRS’s employment tax compliance program could cost the U.S. Treasury more than$130 million in Social Security and Medicare taxes over the next five years:Â
The report… said the IRS should do more to protect against the improper use of employment tax forms to [...]

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The Sun-Herald.com reports that Greatland, one of the country’s leading providers of W-2 and 1099 products for business, has released its top W-2 and 1099 filing “pitfalls” to watch out for this tax season:
Paper filing
While many businesses are electing to e-file their W-2 and 1099 forms with the Social Security Administration (SSA) and / or the [...]

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“Necessity is the mother of invention.”
- Plato -
Experience tells us that spendthrifts are often forced by necessity and desperation to find creative ways to fund their profligate spending. Some turn to gambling, others to confidence games and still others to outright theft.
This phenomenon can be observed in governments as well as individuals.
Here is the latest in [...]

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WebCPA reports that the IRS has agreed that Federal Express drivers are independent contractors and not employees:
The IRS has decided not to assess extra employment taxes for 2004 to 2006 on FedEx for the delivery drivers that the company considers to be independent contractors.
The company said recently that the IRS had decided not to impose the [...]

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Senator John Kerry’s press secretary, Whitney Smith, responded to my blog post titled IRS Files $800K Lien Against John Kerry for President Campaign in an email today.
Here is Ms. Smith’s email in its entirety:
Hi, Peter – saw your posting on the senator and wanted to clarify a few points. The IRS is missing W2 forms [...]

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The Washington Times reports that the IRS has filed a federal tax lien (PDF) against John Kerry’s 2004 campaign for failure to remit payroll taxes:
The Internal Revenue Service has filed a tax lien seeking more than $800,000 from Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, escalating a dispute over payroll taxes that the lawmaker’s office blames on [...]

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What is it about God and taxes?
First we had Kent Hovind, the creationist who said the IRS couldn’t force him to pay payroll taxes because he was “God’s employee.”
And now we have one Frank Amodeo (“Amo” is Latin for love and “deo” Latin for God, hence, Frank Lovegod) who, according to Amy Edwards of the Orlando Sentinel, claimed,
[H]e [...]

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One of the worst tax violations is the failure of an employer to remit payroll taxes it has withheld from its employees’ pay.
Despite its gravity, it is also one of the most frequent tax problems we encounter.
Payroll Tax Delinquencies are Treated Harshly
The IRS is required by law to give employees the benefit of all taxes [...]

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Tim Geithner is Barrack Obama’s Treasury Secretary-Elect and as such, if his appointment is confirmed, will oversee the Internal Revenue Service.
But, according to the Associated Press, Mr. Geithner either intentionally disregards the tax laws or, perhaps even worse, doesn’t understand them:
The disclosure Tuesday that [Obama's] choice for treasury secretary, New York Federal Reserve chief Timothy Geithner, failed to [...]

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