Wen Jiabao gave his ninth (and probably final) annual concluding address of the 11th National People’s Congress (NPC) on March 13. It was a 3-hour press conference. When was the last time you heard a world leader spend three hours giving a press conference?

Although my Chinese borders on hopelessly pathetic, I’ve watched most of Wen’s annual press conferences. Wen speaks slowly and in short, direct sentences that allow him to measure exactly what he wants to say. Whether he wants to succinctly make his point or be purposely ambiguous, there is simply no way he will be misinterpreted by the people or the foreign press.

I love the NPC and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) sessions because of the abundance of news articles recommending new tax ideas and concepts or ‘‘tweaking and fine tuning’’ what is currently in place to improve it. It is more than the meetings in Beijing, though — I genuinely believe that there is less editorial ‘‘reticence’’ than I’ve experienced in a long while. I think we are experiencing a period of increased press freedom in China — at least as tax policy is concerned.

I’m going to start off with

Click to Read More...

Categories:   Tax News   Share Article

The new Form 8938 filing requirement does not replace or otherwise affect a taxpayer’s obligation to file Form TD F 90-22.1 (Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts). Individuals must file each form for which they meet the relevant reporting threshold.

Click to Read More...

Categories:   Tax News   Share Article

The Internal Revenue Service just released the statistics of tax returns filed for 2009.

There were 140,494,127 individual income tax returns filed for Tax Year 2009. Of those, 81,890,189 (or 58.3 percent) were classified as taxable returns. This means that 41.7 percent were not taxable returns, representing the highest number of non-taxable returns in more than 24 years.  Why would anyone file a non-taxable tax return?  Well, they could have Net Operating Losses carrying forward into subsequent years, such as into tax year 2009 which shows up on the tax return for 2009, (when taking into account current losses); even there was no currently taxable income to tax.  Also, many individuals filed tax returns to get credits, refunds or rebates even though they did not earn any money in 2009.

The IRS provided payments to tax return filers for 2009 under the economic stimulus package.  Even if you or your family had at least $3,000 in qualifying income from, or in combination with, Social Security benefits, Veterans Affairs benefits, Railroad Retirement benefits and earned income you could still be eligible for the rebate.  The only other two criteria: 1. You and any family members listed on your tax return have valid Social

Click to Read More...

Categories:   Tax News   Share Article

WASHINGTON –– The Internal Revenue Service today issued its annual

Click to Read More...

Categories:   Tax News   Share Article

Now that the IRS has announced at more than 33,000 individuals have come forward under the various and recent Amnesty programs, it is essential to look at how the internal mechanics of your filing will be handled by the IRS and/or the Criminal Investigation Division, CID.

As I mentioned in my earlier article on the most recent Voluntary Disclosure filing, enacted January 9, 2012, there are still penalties and probably referral of your case to CID. However, should the IRS decided that you do not qualify for this amnesty filing or you are not cooperating under the subjective belief of an IRS agent, then the amnesty filing will be rejected and probably passed to CID.

This article focuses on FBAR requirements should you wish to now begin filing delinquent filings without applying for the Amnesty or if you have applied under one of the recent amnesty programs and have been rejected.

Step 1.

If you learn you were required to file FBARs for earlier years, you should file the delinquent FBARs and attach a statement

Click to Read More...

Categories:   Tax News   Share Article

Over the years, I have probably prepared thousands of tax returns, from the straightforward to the very complex.  Tax returns that are a few pages in length to those exceeding 300 pages.  No matter the size of the tax return, there are usually stock sales that take place on these tax returns from simple investments to a heavy buying and selling that comprise over 500 trades in any one year.  The common factor that seems to occur is that the brokers list the description of the stock sold, the trade and sale dates, the sales price and commissions; but they fail to list when that particular stock was bought and the purchase price.  Therefore, I can not calculate the gain/loss or whether the sale was long term or short term.

Under the Obama legislation, cost reporting shall now be the burden of the Broker to calculate and report to you as well as the IRS.  This new law will cover all stocks purchased from January 1, 2011 forwards.  It will also cover mutual funds and dividend reinvestment plan stock (or similar arrangements) acquired on or after January 1, 2012; and for debt instruments, options and other covered securities acquired

Click to Read More...

Categories:   Tax News   Share Article

New reporting form for beneficiaries of a foreign trust & the December 15th, 2011 deadline is looming for Americans living and working overseas

PART I.

The final extension of time to file your 2010 Individual Income Tax Return is fast approaching, December 15, 2011. This extension is given only for U.S. Taxpayers who live and work overseas.  It also includes dual citizens of the United States, such as a foreign national living and working in their home land but had a parent who was a U.S. Citizen, and U.S. citizens who are long-term residents of a foreign country have a filing requirement to file U.S. tax returns.  However, the deadline for filing the Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBARs) has passed as of June 30, 201.  Now, there is an even more worrisome report, Form 8938 (see part II for a discussion).  According to the latest IRS statistics there is a very large part of the world population that has yet to come forward and become current with IRS filings.  The IRS is aware that many of these individuals are only recently aware of these requirements for being in compliance with the U.S. laws.

IRS

Click to Read More...

Categories:   Tax News   Share Article

The United States’ East Coast suffered the ravages and beating of Hurricane Irene and on August 29th, the Mayor of New York notified the public that New York City's subways would begin reopening that morning.  On the same day, the IRS announced that the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative, OVDI, would have its deadline of August 31, 2001 extended by nine days to September 9, 2011. The IRS believed that the Hurricane had an impact on non-filers who still wished to come forward before losing out to the deadline which was affected by the Hurricane. 

With this deadline extended, individuals, corporations, partnerships and trusts may still request to participate in the Initiative by September 9th.  Individuals will need to provide certain identifying information must be submitted to the Criminal Investigation Division of the U.S. Treasury that includes the following:

1.    Your full name
2.    Date of Birth
3.    Social Security Numbers
4.    Other detailed information requested in the initial disclosure letter that was employed for the August 31st deadline.

If you can not supply all of this information indicated in the above item 4, then you may request a 90-day extension for submitting the complete Disclosure package, which is quite lengthy and

Click to Read More...

Categories:   Tax News   Share Article