The IRS also doesn’t buy the rapper’s attempt to tie the success of his work to the missing assets, questioning the necessity of having “Royal Copenhagen bear figurines” and the afore-mentioned soda machine [Titans!] and games around in order to write hip-hop tunes. [WSJ]
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You’re Wasting Your Time if You Attempt to Bribe an IRS Agent with Starbucks
As we’ve recently learned, IRS Agents are a zealous bunch. If you’re out of compliance you can bet the life of your labrador that they will run you down for the overdue tax, regardless of the sum.
Now perhaps you’ve been thinking that a little bribery might take care of things if you find yourself in a bit tax trouble. IRS Agents are human(?) after all; they fall ill to the temptations of this world just like the rest of us. And because they most likely have some sort of accounting background, they are most certainly caffeine abusers and thus, Starbucks whores.
But an Agent’s first responsibility is to serve the American Taxpayer and your attempts to tempt these civil servants with sweet, venti-sized, mega-calorie caffeinated beverages WILL NOT WORK:
Kim Oahn Thi Tran, also known as Jennifer Kim Tran, faced a tax liability of more than $13,287 for the 2006 and 2007 tax years on unreported income of $30,334, authorities said.
In hopes of lowering her tax liability, Tran sent a package on Nov. 30 to IRS revenue agent Imad Hararah that contained promissory notes and a $100 gift card for Starbucks Coffee that read, “To Imad: Enjoy,” investigators said.
Agent Hararah did not fall for this ploy. Nor did he accept the $2,000 that Tran attempted to give him. Instead this presented itself as a perfect opportunity to add charges, “On Dec. 9, Tran gave the agent $1,500, authorities said. In exchange, Hararah gave her a phony document that made Tran believe that she had a zero balance for 2006 and 2007 tax years.”
Does this guy love his job or what? Not cold hard cash nor natural stimulant will distract this man from doing his job. We can only assume that his brethren are of the same cloth and soon we’ll hear about Agents turning down dates with Lane Kiffin.
Woman charged with trying to bribe IRS agent [SF Chronicle]
The IRS Is Making “Thousands” of Visits to CPAs During Tax Season
Apparently the IRS is not one for timing. Earlier this month the Service announced that if you get paid to crank out 1040s, your life as you know it is more or less over. Well, at least a little more inconvenient. Okay, it’s hella-inconvenient.
Back when the new regulations were announced the Service let it be known that since it can’t get these new regulations implemented for 2010, it was still stepping up its efforts for getting all up in tax preparers’ shit.
The first step being to be to send 10,000 letters to paid preparers nationwide letting them know that they need to be on their A-game. The letters were intended for, “preparers…with large volumes of specific tax returns where the IRS typically sees frequent errors,” and that they should be “vigilant” for errors related to “Schedule C income and expenses, Schedule A deductions, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the First Time Homebuyer Credit.”
Well then. That should cover about EVERY TAX PREPARER IN THE COUNTRY.
Anyway, the IRS is following up the 10,000 “Dear Joe Kristan” letters with phone calls to set up sit-downs with “thousands” of preparers. According to William Stromsem, who wrote a piece over at CPA2Biz, these are “urgent” calls:
In at least one case, the IRS called a practitioner at home and spoke with the spouse by name, asking for a response within three hours and then calling back before that time was up. Another practitioner, who was unable to schedule a meeting during a busy time was threatened with having the refusal passed up the line to a supervisor.
The piece goes to tell us that the visits will be performed in the coming weeks and months and may last up to 3 hours. Does anyone see a problem with this yet?
These chats are designed to be friendly reminders of all the pitfalls out there in tax preparer land; not a compliance visit (but they will remind you of the penalties that can be assessed for any malfeasance). Regardless of the pleasant intentions, the timing has irked CPAs to no end and we can’t say that we blame them. Hope no one is expecting an apology. And one more thing, we’d like to know how the Commish’s CPA feels about this whole thing. Just for fun; he should get a letter.
IRS ‘10,000 Letters’ Program Angers CPAs [CPA2Biz]
TIGTA Scolds IRS for Name-calling…Again
The office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has released a report showing that IRS employees continue to use now prohibited language like “tax protester” and (our personal favorite) “Constitutionally-challenged” in reference to non-compliant taxpayers, despite being barred from doing so since 1998.
Congress enacted the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 (RRA 98) Section 3707 to prohibit the IRS from labeling taxpayers as “Illegal Tax Protesters” or any similar designations. However, IRS employees continue to refer to taxpayers by these designations in case narratives. Using “Illegal Tax Protester” or other similar designations may stigmatize taxpayers and may cause employee bias in future contacts with these taxpayers.
Prior to enactment of the RRA 98, the IRS used the Illegal Tax Protester Program to identify individuals and businesses that were using methods that were not legally valid to protest the tax laws. Employees identified taxpayers for referral to the program when their tax returns or correspondence contained specific indicators of noncompliance with the tax law, such as the use of arguments that had been repeatedly rejected by the courts. There were tax protester coordinators who were responsible for determining whether a taxpayer should be included in the Illegal Tax Protester Program; if a taxpayer was classified as an Illegal Tax Protester, the taxpayer’s record was coded as such on the Master File. Once a taxpayer’s account was coded, certain tax enforcement actions were accelerated. The designation was also intended to alert employees to be cautious so they would not be drawn into confrontations with taxpayers.
The IRS has not reintroduced past Illegal Tax Protester codes or similar designations on taxpayer accounts. In addition, the Internal Revenue Manual no longer contains any Illegal Tax Protester references. However, TIGTA found that out of approximately 3.6 million records and cases, there were 38 instances in which 34 employees had referred to taxpayers as “Tax Protester,” “Constitutionally Challenged,” or other similar designations in case narratives on the computer systems analyzed.
The TIGTA made no recommendations after their report, as the IRS has continued to use the term “tax protester” in taxpayer case files when it sees fit, despite the fact that the TIGTA feels this is not in compliance with RRA 98 § 3707 for obvious reasons.
It appears they do this once a year:
The TIGTA Would Prefer It if the IRS Could Use a Nicer Term Than “Tax Protester”