THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2006
I am in shock - although pleasantly so!
I recently reviewed and responded to erroneous "Statement of Account - Underpayment" notices
(it seems lately that all such notices are erroneous) on behalf of two tax clients.
On one income from a pension was reported on the statement as both wages and a
pension distribution, and on the other NJ state income tax withheld of $100,000 was not applied. In both cases
the 2005 Form NJ-1040 was correct as originally filed.
The notices gave an email address to use to respond, so I sent my responses, pointing out the
Divisions errors and ommissions, both via email and via postal mail.
To my complete and total surprise, in both cases within less than 2 weeks I
received an email reply, each acknowledging the Division's error (the reply for the client not given credit for NJ state tax
withheld asked me to fax a copy of the W-2).
In the past, when I would write (via postal mail) to the NJ Division of Taxation regarding
a client issue I would never hear from Trenton. In most cases the issue would eventually be taken care
of and the taxpayer would receive either the appropriate refund or no further requests for payment - but I would never receive
the courtesy of a written response or acknowledgement to my correspondence. In some cases it would take several unanswered
letters on my part for the state to finally resolve the matter properly.
I had written to then Division of Taxation Director Robert Thompson regarding a client issue
a while back when previous multiple correspondence with the Division over an extended period of time were totally ignored,
and included a complaint about the Division's lack of reponse to my client letters. I received a satisfactory response
to that letter from an "underling", and since that time I have sent any client-related correspondence directly to that person.
While I only on rare occasions actually receive a written reply, the client issue is usually satisfactorily resolved, although
never in less than 2 weeks.
The moral of the story is if you have to respond to the NJ Division of Taxation you should
do it via email.
As a general rule, when contacting just about any branch of New Jersey government for a variety
of issues and matters I have received a relatively prompt and satisfactory response when the contact has been made via email.
Any comments?
TAFN
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2006
At the recent NATP year-end update class I learned something new from the pension act.
I emailed the following to the NJ Division of Pensions:
"The recently passed pension bill includes a provision that permits an eligible retired public
safety officer to elect to exclude from gross income any distribution from en eligible retirement plan for health insurance
premiums, up to $3,000, effective with calendar year 2007.
I understand this to mean that a retired police officer or firefighter can elect to have the
amount withheld from his/her state pension for health insurance coverage treated as "pre-tax" for federal income tax purposes.
How can a NJ retired public safety officer elect this tax treatment?
Thank you!"
I got a response today:
"Dear Mr Flach:
This provision is optional and we have not yet determined whether it would be feasible for
the NJ Division of Pensions and Benefits to adopt. If and when a determination is made, we will notify all eligible
retirees.
Thank you,
Valerie Askew, Client Services"
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
TAFN
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2006
The IRS has announced a formula that can be used by business and non-profit entities to determine
the amount of the refund of federal excise tax paid on long-distance service.
- - - - - - - - - -
At the annual National Association of Tax Professionals year-end update seminar lthis
past Friday a representative of the New Jersey chapter of NATP announced that their annual NEW JERSEY STATE
SEMINAR will be held on January 13, 2007 at, as usual, the Woodbridge Hilton in Iselin.
Registration will begin at 7:45 am, and the seminar should begin at 8:15 am.
The cost of the seminar is $165 for members and $185 for non-members if the registration
is postmarked before January 7, 2007, or $205 for both members and non-members if postmarked on or after 1/7/07 or at
the door. Continental breakfast, lunch and afternoon dessert is included.
The topics for the day will include NJ Estate/Inheritance Tax, Sales Tax Update, Electronic
Filing Requirements, Corporation Tax Changes, Corporate Dissolutions, and a Philadelphia/Pennsylvania update. Maureen
Adams, the new Director of the NJ Division of Taxation, is scheduled to speak.
For more information on the seminar you can call 1-800-281-NATP or 908-709-4261.
TAFN
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2006
What is a "Blog Carnival"? According to http://blogcarnival.com, Blog Carnivals typically collect together links pointing to blog articles on a particular topic - investments, cats, breadmaking,
Lutherans, networking, and even "the decline of democracy".
Kay Bell's Tax Carnival refers to me under the "Real Estate
Roundup" section - "For elaboration on taxes and the sale
of your personal residence, Robert Flach, aka The Wandering Tax Pro, directs us to his October 28 posting on
that topic."
I
suggest you visit Kay Bell's Tax Carnival as a way of finding out about the many blogs that discuss federal and state tax
issues.
TAFN
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2006
As a New Jersey tax professional for over 30 years I have seen the “minimum tax” for a NJ corporation go from $25.00 to
as high as $2,000.00.
Because
this is in reality a “franchise fee” and not a tax assessment it must be paid even if the corporation has
“0” net income or a net loss. It must be paid even if the corporation
was totally inactive. Plus the corporation must also pay an “Annual Report
fee”.
The
DFBs (clean version
= damned fool bureaucrats) in Trenton recently increased the minimum tax from $500.00 to a sliding scale of up to $2,000.00 based on “gross
receipts”. The average one-man small business corporation with gross receipts
of between $100,000.00 and $250,000.00, who will generally have minimal or no net income, will see their NJ corporate tax
payment increase by 50% - from $500.00 to $750.00!
While
my initial knee-jerk reaction
was to have clients in this situation convert from a corporation to an LLC, a closer examination indicates that this is not
necessarily the way to go. As with any option available in the tax code, you
should do separate calculations for each option, taking into consideration federal, state and local tax consequences.
Let us look at a client who has a small
retail store. He is currently a one-man “C” corporation. When he incorporated NJ did not permit a one-man LLC, so this was not an option to consider at the time.
His gross receipts for the year are slightly over $200,000.00. He took a salary of $45,000.00, bringing his federal net taxable income to $2.00 - $502.00 for NJ purposes
after adding back the NJ-CBT deduction. As part of the price for the privilege
of living in New Jersey he paid $12,857.00 in health insurance premiums for himself and his family through the corporation. The corporation paid $3,734.00 in federal and state payroll taxes in addition to the
$3,681.00 in FICA, SUI and SDI withheld from the $45,000.00 in wages.
If the client had operated as a one-man LLC filing a Schedule C for
2006, the net earnings on his federal Schedule C would have been $62,093.00 ($2.00 corporate income + $45,000.00 salary +
$3,734.00 payroll taxes + $12,857.00 health insurance premiums + $500.00 NJ-CBT). His
self-employment tax would be $8,773.00 ($62,093.00 x .9235 = $57,343.00 x 15.3%).
The additional tax paid as an LLC would be $1,358.00 ($8,773.00 - $3,734.00 corporate payroll tax expense
- $3,681.00 payroll tax withholdings). There would be a very small federal income
tax savings - as the net taxable earnings from self-employment, after deducting the health insurance premiums and one-half
of the self-employment tax would be $44,849.00 instead of $45,000.00 – but the state income tax liability would be more
due to the increased earnings reported from self-employment and possible decreased medical deduction.
The total additional tax cost is substantially more than
the increased $750.00 NJ-CBT minimum tax that he would save if he organized as an LLC filing as a sole proprietor. Plus there is the side benefit that the client is less likely to be audited by the
IRS if filing as a corporation.
So, because of the way health insurance premiums for the self-employed are deducted on the federal Form 1040 the client is better off
to remain a corporation. However, if health insurance premiums are not a factor
it may indeed be cost effective to convert from a corporation to an LLC. Do the math.
Of course you must also factor into your calculations the fee differential for preparing
corporate income tax and quarterly payroll tax returns as opposed to the cost for preparing Schedules C and SE, Form 4562
and quarterly estimated tax payments for the 1040.
TAFN
MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2006
As the final deadline for extended returns, today
can also be considered to be the official end of the tax filing season - my 35th season in "the business". This milestone
has caused me to wax nostalgic about the "good old days" of the tax profession and how tax laws, regulations and procedures
have changed over the years.
Those were the days, my friend -
* when a savvy tax preparer could "pull a rabbit
out of a hat" and save a client literally thousands of dollars in federal income tax with "Income Averaging" or "10-Year Averaging"
(and in doing so be assured a client for life),
* when credit card interest, auto loan interest
and personal loan interest, as well as our tax preparation fees, were fully deductible,
* when "Employee Business Expenses" were an adjustment
to income and not an itemized deduction subject to a 2% of AGI exclusion,
* when there was no such thing as an Adjusted
Gross Income exclusion or threshold or the "phase-out" of a deduction or credit,
* before all the acronyms (PIG, PAL, ACRS, MACRS and
so on),
* and when one-half of long-term capital gain just disappeared
from the tax return.
I started my career in February of 1972, preparing 1971
tax returns, when a deduction was really worth something and everyone itemized. As we used to tell clients, "Uncle Sam
will reimburse you for up to half of our fee!"
In 1971 the top tax rate was 70%. There was a
"minimum tax", not yet alternative, and a "maximum tax" (i.e. the maximum tax on "earned income" was 50%). While we
did prepare a few maximum tax forms, I do not recall ever preparing a minimum tax form. The Alternative Minimum Tax
did not begin to affect out clients until the 2nd half of the 1990s.
I went to work for James P Gill, my uncle's tax preparer,
during my first year of college, with no experience preparing tax returns. I had never prepared a tax return before,
not even my own! My education consisted solely of the freshman semester of "Accounting 101".
I learned the business the absolute best way possible
- by actually preparing returns. On my first day of work I was given a briefcase containing a client's current year
"stuff" and a copy of the previous year's return and told to "jump in and swim". If I had a question I would ask Jim,
blessed with the patience of a Saint (a trait I soon learned was essential for a tax preparer), who would stop what he was
doing to explain the answer to me.
I worked in a true "storefront" office on the fringe
of Journal Square, Jersey City's equivalent of Times Square (made famous in the "Jersey Bounce", which "started at Journal
Square"), where we dealt with what Jim affectionately referred to as "the great unwashed masses" on a daily basis.
There certainly were no computers in those days.
During my first few years we did not even have a copy machine in the office. Returns were prepared by hand on 3-page
carbonized forms purchased from Accountant's Supply House. To this day I still prepare all my 1040s manually - in 35
tax seasons I have never used tax preparation software to prepare a return.
As I started out in the tax preparation business the
matching of 1099s to 1040s had just begun. I remember a client who came into the office during my first or second year
with a humungous print-out from the IRS listing by source all the interest and dividends that he had failed to report on his
previous year's 1040.
Back then a tax preparer was truly in many ways also
a "father confessor". One day a widow came into the office dressed in her black mourning outfit and waited to see Jim.
Once in the "inner sanctum" she confessed that while her husband was alive she filed a joint return with him, prepared by
our office, claiming only his income, and she also filed a single return, elsewhere, under her own Social Security number
to report a small pension she received in her maiden name. In those days only the Social Security number of the husband
was required to be entered on the return - and not that of the spouse. After giving her "absolution" Jim commenced to
fix the situation.
During my early years you were also not required
to list the Social Security number for dependents claimed on your return. One year a married client, let's call him
John and call his wife Mary, left his "stuff" off at the office, which included a handwritten sheet listing, among other deductions,
"dependents" John, Mary, Paul and George. The college student who prepared the return that year (not me) listed as dependents
John, Mary, Paul and George. The client received the refund requested on the return without question.
The next year John came in and stayed while I prepared
the return. I asked if he was still claiming his four kids, John, Mary, Paul and George, and he told me that he only
had two children - Paul and George! It appears that the student who had prepared the previous return had forgotten our
first, and most important, rule of tax preparation - always review the prior year's return when preparing the current 1040.
At the recent IRS Tax Forum it was reported that in
the first year you were required to list a Social Security number for all of your dependents about 5 Million dependents
disappeared from tax returns.
Over the years, due to our proximity to New York City,
we prepared the returns of some "semi-famous" taxpayers. One year in the late 1970s we prepared the 1040 for the then
captain of the New York Giants football team, who was partner in a local restaurant with one of our long-time clients.
This was well before the days when professional athletes all had multi-million dollar contracts, but I do recall being surprised
that his W-2 was only $100,000+. FYI, this person was one of the rare clients, I can count them on the fingers of one
hand, who "stiffed" Jim over the years.
When the drummer for the original off-Broadway
production of ONE MO' TIME became sick and a local union musician, whose return we prepared, took his place we welcomed as
new clients most of the members of the cast, who came up to New York from New Orleans where the show had originated.
It was the first year we added the Louisiana state income tax return to our repertoire. I remember having complimentary
tickets for the show upstairs at the Village Gate and going backstage after the performance to deliver finished returns.
We also did the tax returns for the road company.
Our clients were extremely loyal. If they moved
out of state they would continue to mail their tax returns to us. We had one client who had retired to the Netherlands
and still had us prepare her 1040!
Some clients were also compulsively consistent,
coming in to have their returns done on the same day each year. Back when Abe Lincoln had his own separate legal holiday
February 12th was a busy day for us, especially with teachers. We also had our share of clients who would wait until
the very last day of each tax season, generally April 15th, to come in. When we saw Wally Weinmann, usually the last
person on the last day, we knew that it was over! We even had a tv repairman who was always a year and a day late -
he would come in on April 16th of 1975, for example, to have his 1973, not 1974, tax return prepared!
Of course in the "good old days" we never filed
an extension. We finished all the returns on April 15th - even if we had to stay up until 3 am to do so!
A lot has changed since those days. Reagan
completely rewrote the tax code with the Tax Reform Act of 1986, doing away with a lot of the loopholes and deductions
we had used to work magic. Jim decided to retire when he turned 75 and handed his practice and office over to me.
He would come in to help during the last weeks of the season until he passed away three years later.
As you may know, I now work out of a home office and
no longer take on new clients. While I do not miss dealing with the "great unwashed masses" I do miss the "good old
days". Every now and then a long-time client, faced with a large balance due to "Sam", will ask if we can Income Average
and I think back to the days when we could "pull a rabbit out of a hat".
And of course, most of all I miss the days when come
April 15th it was truly over - and we didn't have to spend the next six months dealing with GD extensions!
Do you have any tales of the "good old days" you want to share?
TAFN
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2006
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 allows an individual age 70 1/2 or older to directly
transfer up to $100,000.00 from an IRA to a qualified charity tax-free (the amount of the transfer is not included in
the taxpayer's AGI).
- - - - - - - - - -
Here's an idea...
TAFN
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2006
It seems every other day I hear from another client about the problem
with the NJ Division of Taxation discussed in the Tuesday, September 12th posting.
I have not heard of any other tax pros who have had similar problems with balance due clients.
As I do not use tax preparation software, and therefore do not e-file, I have satisfied my NJ electronic filing
requirement whenever possible by submitting the NJ-1040s via NJWebFile. It appears that all the problems have been
with returns submitted via NJWebFile.
No word yet on my letter to the NJ Division of Taxation regarding this problem.
- - - - - - - - - -
The Tax Policy Center has prepared
a "Summary of Major Enacted Tax Legislation from 1981-2006". This special report briefly outlines the major provisions
of each of the 39 tax laws passed during this period (9 of which were enacted under George W).
TAFN
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2006
There seems to be a serious problem with the NJ Division of Taxation's
processing of the payments of balance dues on 2005 Form NJ-1040s.
I have heard from 6 clients so far who have received balance due notices from the Division
of Taxation for 2005. In each case the client had remitted the balance due on their 2005 Form NJ-1040 on a timely
basis - and each had documentation that the check was received and cashed by the DOT - but they were not given credit
for the payment on the balance due notice!
It appears that the Division of Taxation credited each of the 2005
payments to the client's 2004 Form NJ-1040 account!
A few clients contacted the DOT directly and were told of the error and that the payments would
be transferred to the correct tax year.
I have written to the Division of Taxation about this problem.
Have your clients also been getting this erroneous balance due notices?
TAFN
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