The IRS is issuing information to all taxpayers to stay on the lookout for fraudulent emails and correspondences claiming to be the IRS this tax season. Each year the IRS receives thousands of reports about suspicious calls, emails, faxes and notices claiming to be from the IRS. The goal of these fraudulent notices is an attempt to collect your personal information for identity theft or to take your money!
The IRS
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Now that tax season is here, we will be seeing more and more headlines about the IRS, tax filing tips, news and more. This has been a busy week in tax relief news; here is my weekly round up of the top stories. Enjoy!
Let’s begin with celebrity tax headlines of the week:
Feds: Lindsay Lohan owes $94,000 in unpaid taxes
Well, I am sorry to say there is no surprise to
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According to a new article by the Los Angeles Times, the IRS is increasing the number of audits on taxpayers making over  $1 million a year.  In the article titled Big earners more likely to face audits by Tiffany Hsu, the majority of audits done by the IRS are done on those making $1 million and very rarely on anyone making under $20 k a year. Hsu states that in
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The IRS is seeking to return $153 million in undelivered tax refund checks to taxpayers in 2011. A total of 99,123 taxpayers are owed checks, averaging at total of $1547 per check, due to mailing address errors!
If you are one of the taxpayers still waiting to receive your tax relief refund, follow these steps provided by the IRS to get your earned income back where it belongs and how to
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It is always important to keep yourself educated and up to date on current tax changes and laws to make sure you stay out of problems with the IRS before they occur. The same holds true when it comes to picking your tax professional or tax attorney. Take the time to make sure that he or she is certified and can provide recommendations.
To help keep the tax preparation industry in
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As 2011 slowly draws to a close, the IRS wants to remind homeowners that there is still time in the year to take advantage of the tax relief of home energy credits. The Nonbusiness Energy Property Credit is available for homeowners who have installed or are installing energy efficiency improvements to their home before the close of the year. Installations such as new windows, insulation and furnaces can help qualify
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Budget cuts are a common topic these days regarding anything surrounding the United States government, so it goes as no surprise to hear that the IRS is next on the list of drastic budget reductions. On the Wall Street Journal’s blog The Tax Blog, Jonnelle Marte keeps us informed on the latest news in her post IRS Cuts: Good News for Deadbeats?
According to the article, Congress plans to reduce the
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The IRS announced yesterday new tax relief guidelines for a provision that allow small businesses the ability to claim a cell phone provided to employees by said business as tax-free without any arduous record keeping needed. The notice issued explains how the provision works in regards to employer purchased cell phones for employee use. It also goes on to explain that the IRS will not require the employer to provide
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With the nations budget deficit increasing and negotiations over what to do about the debt ceiling still raging on, taxpayers should be looking out for changes in “relief providing” tax breaks in upcoming years. Currently the tax breaks that most tax payers rely on for tax relief could be at risk of being cut from the books.  Laura Saunders of the Wall Street Journal explores the future of your tax
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Effective immediately the IRS will be allowing tax relief to the innocent spouses of those with serious IRS tax problems and back taxes. The new rules will help protect partners, especially those from abusive relationships, by granting relief to those who could have been deemed liable for a spouse’s tax problems. The Wall Street Journal’s Laura Saunders explains how the new rules differ from the original rule of a 2
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The IRS has been making huge increases in its workload of audits and taking your tax payments and they won’t be stopping anytime soon.  TRS blogged back in March about the government’s pressure to close the whopping $345 billion tax deficit which in turned caused the IRS to increase audits by 11% last year-targeting both consumers and business owners. Arden Dale’s  article Why Paying Taxes Takes Longer from  SmartMoney, examines
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The IRS announced its new standards for mileage rates for the second half of the 2011 year. Starting July 1 the new rates will take effect.  The Wall Street Journal reports that after the first “the rate for business miles increases to 55.5 cents from 51 cents and to 23.5 cents from 19 cents per mile for medical and moving expenses. The per-mile deduction for charitable expenses remains unchanged, at
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When making donations to charitable causes it is always a great idea to document the donation properly which can later be used as tax relief in the form of a deduction.  Another important step is to check whether or not the charity you are contributing to is actually tax-exempt to begin with.
Last week the IRS released its list of approximately 275,000 organizations that have lost their tax exemption status.  According
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As we all know by now, the IRS has increased its level of scrutiny of tax payers and audits are increasing. Lara Saunders (Wall Street Journal) wrote an article called Rich Are Targeted in IRS Audit Offensive addressing how the wealthy are being audited at a rate double or triple what was seen in the previous decade.
According to Saunder’s article the wealthiest Americans are being targeted increasingly by the IRS
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As noted in the Forbes article by William P. Barrett, From The Grave, Tax Lawyer To Rich Beats IRS Again, the memorable Chicago tax lawyer Burton W. Kanter continues to win case after case against the Internal Revenue Service even after death.
Kanter was one of the leading tax attorneys in the United States and senior editor of the Journal of Taxation.  He is famous for escaping years of his own
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