New York SBDC Research Network

From USA.gov IRS Imposter Scams IRS imposter scams occur when someone contacts you pretending to work for the IRS. The imposter may contact you by phone, email, postal mail, or even a text message. There are two common types of scams: Tax collection - You receive a phone call or letter, claiming that you owe taxes. They will demand that you pay the amount immediately often with a prepaid debit card or wire transfer. They may even threaten to arrest you if you don’t pay. Verification - You receive an email or text message that requires you to verify your personal information. The message often includes a hyperlink phrase "click here" or a button to a fraudulent form or website. Report IRS Imposter Scams Contact the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) if you believe that an IRS imposter has contacted you. Report IRS imposter scams online or by calling TIGTA at 1-800-366-4484. Forward email messages that claim to be from the IRS to phishing@irs.g...

From the Internal Revenue Service Section 199A of the Internal Revenue Code provides many taxpayers a deduction for qualified business income from a qualified trade or business operated directly or through a pass-through entity. The deduction has two components. Eligible taxpayers may be entitled to a deduction of up to 20 percent of qualified business income (QBI) from a domestic business operated as a sole proprietorship or through a partnership, S corporation, trust or estate. For taxpayers with taxable income that exceeds $315,000 for a married couple filing a joint return, or $157,500 for all other taxpayers, the deduction is subject to limitations such as the type of trade or business, the taxpayer’s taxable income, the amount of W-2 wages paid by the qualified trade or business and the unadjusted basis immediately after acquisition (UBIA) of qualified property held by the trade or business. Income earned through a C corporation or by providing services as an employee is no...

From the Internal Revenue Service : The Internal Revenue Service, state tax agencies and the tax industry will hold a National Tax Security Awareness Week December 3-7, 2018 to encourage individual and business taxpayers to take steps to protect their tax data and identities in advance of the 2019 filing season. The IRS announced steep declines in tax-related identity theft in 2017 following the success of the Security Summit effort. Key indicators of identity theft dropped for the second year in a row in 2017. This includes a 40 percent decline in taxpayers reporting they are victims of identity theft in 2016. Since 2015, the number of tax-related identity theft victims has fallen by almost two-thirds and billions of dollars of taxpayer refunds have been protected. The Don't Take the Bait awareness series is focused on the need for tax professionals to increase their computer security and be cautious of spear phishing scams. Tax professionals must remember that they have a l...

Obtained From:   New York Times If you weren’t expecting an income tax refund but discover a big deposit from the Internal Revenue Service in your bank account, don’t be quick to celebrate. You may have been the target of a clever new scam. The latest twist in tax-time identity fraud involves thieves who pilfer personal and financial information, often from professional tax preparers. They then use those details to file fake tax returns and have refunds — sometimes as large as $20,000 — sent electronically to your account with plans to collect it later.  The I.R.S. initially warned about the scam on Feb. 2, urging tax professionals to “step up security and beware of phishing emails that can secretly download malicious software that can help cybercriminals steal client data.”

Obtained from:   IRS Learning the A-Zs of taxes seems overwhelming. But with a little planning, research, and attention to detail, it can be easier than you think. Credits and deductions are an important part of the process—though sometimes it's difficult to tell them apart.  You s ubtract tax credits from the amount of tax you owe. There are two types of tax credits: A nonrefundable tax credit means you get a refund only up to the amount you owe. A refundable tax credit means you get a refund, even if it's more than what you owe. An example is  the Child Tax Credit. You s ubtract tax deductions from your income before you figure the amount of tax you owe.  Deductions, such as the Tuition and Fees Deduction for qualified education expenses, can help lower the amount of your taxable income

From the Internal Revenue Service: Employers face a January 31, 2018, due date for filing 2017 Forms W-2 and W-3 with the Social Security Administration. This date applies to both electronic and paper filers. Form 1099-MISC is due to the IRS and individuals by January 31 when reporting non-employee compensation payments in box 7. Penalties for failure to file correct information returns or furnish correct payee statements have increased and are now subject to inflationary adjustments. These increased penalties are effective for information returns required to be filed after December 31, 2015.

From the IRS : The IRS will begin contacting some taxpayers whose overdue federal tax accounts are being transferred to private collection agencies. But watch out for scammers who might claim to be associated with the program to try to steal your money. Keep in mind, the IRS will always send you a letter first before assigning your account to a private collection agency (PCA). Learn more about this new private debt collection program, including how to avoid tax scams and protect your taxpayer rights. Starting this month, the Internal Revenue Service will begin sending letters to a relatively small group of taxpayers whose overdue federal tax accounts are being assigned to one of four private-sector collection agencies. The new program, authorized under a federal law enacted by Congress in December 2015, enables these designated contractors to collect, on the government’s behalf, unpaid tax debts. Usually, these are unpaid individual tax obligations that are not currently being wor...

From the IRS : In an unprecedented partnership, the IRS, the states and the tax industry are working together to protect your federal and state tax accounts from identity thieves. We are asking you - taxpayers, tax preparers and businesses - to join with us to create an even stronger partnership in the face of this constantly evolving enemy. Our "Taxes. Security. Together" awareness campaign is an effort to better inform you about the need to protect your personal, tax and financial data online and at home. People continue to fall prey to clever cybercriminals who trick them into giving up Social Security numbers, account numbers or password information. In turn, criminals use this information a variety of ways, including filing fraudulent tax returns. As part of the "Taxes. Security. Together" effort, we launched a Protect your Clients; Protect Yourself campaign to raise awareness among tax professionals that they increasingly are targets of cybercriminals an...

Self-insured employers, applicable large employers and health coverage providers are reminded that the  June 30  deadline to electronically file information returns with the IRS is approaching. The deadline to provide information returns to employees or responsible individuals was  March 31 . While the deadline to file paper information returns with the IRS was May 31, electronic filers have more time. This chart provides a reminder about the upcoming filing requirement and the  June 30, 2016 , deadline.                     Action Electronic Filing Due Dates in 2016 for… Applicable Large Employers – Including Those That Are Self-Insured Self-insured Employers That Are  Not  Applicable Large Employers Coverage Providers –        Other Than Self-Insured Applicable Large Employers* Electronically File 1094-B and 1095-B with the...

From the IRS : It’s important to know how many full-time employees you have because two provisions of the Affordable Care Act – employer shared responsibility and employer information reporting for offers of minimum essential coverage – apply only to applicable large employers. Employers average the number of their full-time employees, including full-time equivalents, for the months from the previous year to see whether they are considered an applicable large employer. Whether your organization is an Applicable Large Employers (ALE) for a particular calendar year depends on the size of your workforce in the preceding calendar year. To be an ALE, you must have had an average of at least 50 full-time employees – including full-time-equivalent employees – during the preceding calendar year. So, for example, you will use information about the size of your workforce during 2016 to determine if your organization is an ALE for 2017.

If you have not yet filed your federal tax return, here are three last-minute filing tips related to the health care law. Remember that the tax filing deadline this year is  Monday, April 18 . Check the box to report health care coverage If you are concerned that the health care law might require additional time to complete your tax return, remember that most taxpayers will simply check a box related to health care on their return. If everyone listed on your return had qualifying health care coverage for the entire year, you will simply check the box on your return to indicate you had coverage. This is the first year you may receive new forms providing information about your health care coverage. The new forms are  Form 1095-B , Health Coverage  and  Form 1095-C , Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage. Even if you do not receive a Form 1095-B or Form 1095-C by the time you are ready to file your 2015 tax return, you do not necessarily need to ...

From the IRS: Most employers have fewer than 50 full-time employees or full-time equivalent employees and are not subject to the Affordable Care Act’s  employer shared responsibility provision . If an employer has fewer than 50 full-time employees, including full-time equivalent employees, on average during the prior year, the employer is not an ALE for the current calendar year.  Therefore, the employer is not subject to the employer shared responsibility provisions or the employer information reporting provisions for the current year. Calculating the number of employees is especially important for employers that have close to 50 employees or whose workforce fluctuates throughout the year.

The IRS writes: You, your employees or your clients may receive one or more forms that provide information about 2015 health coverage. These forms are  1095 -A, 1095-B and 1095-C. The following health care tax tips provide some answers to common questions about these forms: Form 1095-A: What you need to do with this form Form 1095-B: What you need to do with this form Form 1095-C: What you need to do with this form For more information on these forms, see our  Questions and Answers  about health care information forms for individuals.

The Internal Revenue Service today issued an alert to payroll and human resources professionals to beware of an emerging phishing email scheme that purports to be from company executives and requests personal information on employees. The IRS has learned this scheme – part of the surge in phishing emails seen this year – already has claimed several victims as payroll and human resources offices mistakenly email payroll data including Forms W-2 that contain Social Security numbers and other personally identifiable information to cybercriminals posing as company executives. “This is a new twist on an old scheme using the cover of the tax season and W-2 filings to try tricking people into sharing personal data.

Notice 2016-1 SECTION 1. PURPOSE This notice provides the optional 2016 standard mileage rates for taxpayers to use in computing the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical, or moving expense purposes. This notice also provides the amount taxpayers must use in calculating reductions to basis for depreciation taken under the business standard mileage rate, and the maximum standard automobile cost that may be used in computing the allowance under a fixed and variable rate (FAVR) plan. SECTION 2. BACKGROUND Rev. Proc. 2010-51, 2010-51 I.R.B. 883, provides rules for computing the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical, or moving expense purposes, and for substantiating, under § 274(d) of the Internal Revenue Code and § 1.274-5 of the Income Tax Regulations, the amount of ordinary and necessary business expenses of local transportation or travel away from home. Taxpayers using the standard mileage rates mu...

Who Must Report? As a governmental, Tribal, tax-exempt or for-profit employer, if you are an  applicable large employer  you are subject to the Affordable Care Act information reporting requirements. These requirements apply to you whether or not you offered health coverage to your employees. You are an  applicable large employer  for 2015 if you had 50 or more full-time employees, including full-time equivalent employees, in 2014. What Must You Report? If you were an applicable large employer in 2015, you must file information returns with the IRS and provide statements to each employee who was a full-time employee for at least one month of the year about health coverage you offered or to show that you did not offer health coverage.

Small Business Taxes: The Virtual Workshop was designed to help the new business owner, understand and meet federal tax obligations. This workshop is constructed so that the first three lessons... What You Need to Know about Federal Taxes and Your New Business, What You Need to Know about Schedule C and Other Small Business Taxes and Tax Forms; And How to File and Pay Your Taxes Electronically are for everyone, no matter what kind of business you have or whether you have employees. Then, in What You Need to Know When You Run Your Business Out of Your Home and How to Set Up a Retirement Plan for You and Your Employees, there will be discussed some information that may be relevant to you now-- or that may become relevant once your business has become established. The final four lessons... What You Need to Know about Federal Taxes when Hiring Employees or Independent Contractors, How to Manage Payroll so You Withhold the Correct Amount from Employees, How to Make Tax Deposits and F...

Revenue Procedure 2014-64 provides an updated list of jurisdictions with which the United States has in effect an income tax or other convention or bilateral agreement relating to the exchange of information for purposes of the bank deposit interest reporting requirements under §§1.6049-4(b)(5) and 1.6049-8(a), as well as jurisdictions with which the IRS and Treasury have determined the automatic exchange of such information is appropriate. Revenue Procedure 2014-64 will be inIRB 2014-53, dated December 29, 2014

The IRS broadcasts webinars on a variety of subjects aimed at educating tax professionals on issues affecting them and their clients. The webinars are free. NATIONAL WEBINARS Business Use of Your Home  - September 10, 2014 2014 Affordable Care Act Provisions for Individuals, Families and Small Businesses   - September 17, 2014

The premier funder database, Foundation Directory Online , now includes a free search tool that has replaced Foundation Finder, providing public access to essential information about nearly 90,000 foundations and over 250,000 IRS Forms 990-PF . Funder profiles include: Address and contact information Fields of interest Program areas Fiscal information