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If the IRS kept all or a portion of your federal refund, it may be because you owe money for certain delinquent debts. If you are in arrears for one or more of these obligations, the IRS or the Department of Treasury’s Financial Management Service (FMS), which issues IRS tax refunds, can offset or reduce your federal tax refund or withhold the entire amount to satisfy the debt.

Here are some important facts you should know about tax refund offsets:

If you owe federal or state income taxes, your refund will be offset to pay those tax liabilities. If you had other debt, such as child support or a student loan debt that was submitted for offset, FMS will take as much of your refund as is needed to pay off the debt and send it to the agency authorized to collect it. Any portion of your refund remaining after an offset will be refunded to you.

You will receive a notice if an offset occurs. The notice will reflect the original refund amount, your offset amount, the agency receiving the payment, and the address and telephone number of the agency.

You should contact the agency shown on the notice if you believe you do not owe the debt or if you are disputing the amount taken from your refund.

If you filed a joint return and you are the spouse who is not responsible for the debt, but are entitled to a portion of the refund, you may request your portion of the refund by filing IRS Form 8379, Injured Spouse Allocation. If you know that your spouse has outstanding debts and anticipates an offset, you can attach Form 8379 to your original Form 1040, Form 1040A, or Form 1040EZ. If not, you can file it after you are notified of an offset.

If you file a Form 8379 with your return, write “INJURED SPOUSE” at the top left corner of the Form 1040, 1040A ,or 1040EZ. IRS will process your allocation request before an offset occurs.

If you are filing Form 8379 by itself, it must show both spouses’ Social Security numbers in the same order as they appeared on your income tax return. You, the “injured” spouse, must sign the form. Do not attach the previously filed Form 1040 to the Form 8379, but, to speed up processing, attach a copy of all Forms W-2 and W-2G and any 1099s where federal income tax has been withheld that relate to the Form 1040 you already filed. Send Form 8379 to the Service Center where you filed your original return.

If you reside in a community property state, overpayments (refunds) are considered joint

property and are generally applied (offset) to legally owed past-due obligations of either spouse. There are exceptions; please call for additional details.

The IRS will compute the injured spouse’s share of the joint return for you. Contact the IRS only if your original refund amount shown on the FMS offset notice differs from the refund amount shown on your tax return.

Some employees may incur certain work-related expenses. If their employers reimburse them for the expenses, then the employees are not out-of–pocket for the expenses and cannot deduct them on their tax returns. If the employers do not reimburse for the expenses, the employees may deduct the expenses as a miscellaneous itemized deduction on their tax returns.

Seems simple enough, right? Well, maybe not. Let’s look at all the issues associated with deducting employee work-related expenses. We shall begin by defining the employee business expenses that can either be deducted or reimbursed. To qualify, expenses must be ordinary and necessary in performance of the employee’s duties and generally include:

Business travel away from home (does not include commuting from home to work and back).
Business use of the employee’s vehicle.
Business meals and entertainment (special rules apply).
Travel.
Business use of the employee’s home (difficult to qualify for as an employee).
Education.
Supplies.
Tools.

If an employer does not reimburse the expenses, then the only solution is for the employee to itemize the unreimbursed expenses on IRS Form 2106 and then deduct the expenses on Schedule A as an itemized deduction. But here are several negative aspects associated with deducting the expenses on Schedule A:

A taxpayer who takes the standard deduction cannot deduct the expenses because the expenses can only be deducted as a part of a taxpayer’s itemized deductions.

Even when deducting the expenses as miscellaneous itemized deductions, taxpayers are faced with a limitation. Most miscellaneous itemized deductions, including employee business expenses, are reduced by 2% of the individual’s modified adjusted gross income (MAGI). For example, if the taxpayer’s MAGI is $100,000, he gains no benefit from the first $2,000 of miscellaneous itemized deductions. Thus, if his miscellaneous itemized deduction only consisted of work-related expenses of $3,000, he would only benefit from $1,000 of his work-related expenses ($3,000 less $2,000).
Finally, a taxpayer subject to the alternative minimum tax (AMT) faces still another limitation. When computing the AMT, miscellaneous itemized deductions are not allowed. So to the extent of the AMT, no benefit is derived from deducting miscellaneous buy cialis online itemized deductions.
Because of all the limitations associated with deducting the expenses, it is always better to have the expenses reimbursed by the employer under an accountable plan. Under this type of arrangement, the employee must account for each expense and provide the employer with written documentation (expense report). The reimbursement is not taxable to the employee and not included in the employee’s Form W-2. An accountable plan must meet three requirements; the employee must:

Have paid or incurred expenses that are deductible while performing services as an employee.

Adequately account to the employer for these expenses within a reasonable time period.

Return any excess reimbursement or allowance within a reasonable time period.
If the plan under which the employer reimburses the employee is non-accountable, then the payments the employee receives should be included in the wages shown on his Form W-2. The employee must report the income and itemize deductions to deduct these expenses.

Some employers may not be willing to pick up the additional expense, in which case the employee can try negotiating a pay reduction and corresponding expense reimbursement.

The employee must also keep adequate records of his work-related expenses.

And one last word of advice: if an employee is eligible to be reimbursed for a work-related expense but fails to request reimbursement from his employer, the employee may not claim the expense as a deduction on his tax return.

If you already filed your federal tax return and are due a refund, you can check the status of your refund online.

Where’s My Refund? is an interactive tool on the IRS website. Whether you split your refund among several accounts, opted for direct deposit into one account, or asked the IRS to mail you a check, Where’s My Refund? will give you online access to your refund information nearly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

If you e-file, you can get refund information 72 hours after the IRS acknowledges receipt of your return. If you file a paper return, refund information will be available within approximately four weeks. When checking the status of your refund, have your federal tax return handy. To access your personalized refund information, you must enter:

Your Social Security Number (or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number);
Your Filing Status (Single, Married Filing Joint Return, Married Filing Separate Return, Head of Household, or Qualifying Widow(er)); and
The exact refund amount shown on your tax return.

Once your personal information has been entered, one of several responses

may come up, including the following:

Acknowledgement that your return was received and is in processing.
The mailing date or direct deposit date of your refund.
Notice that the IRS could not deliver your refund due to an incorrect address. You can update your address online using the Where’s My Refund? feature.

Where’s My Refund? also includes links to customized information based on your specific situation. The links guide you through the steps to resolve any issues affecting your refund. For example, if you do not get the refund within 28 days from the original IRS mailing date shown on Where’s My Refund?, you can start a refund trace online.

Where’s My Refund? is also accessible to visually impaired taxpayers who use the Job Access with Speech screen reader used with a Braille display and is compatible with different JAWS modes.

If you do not have Internet access, you can check the status of your refund by calling the IRS TeleTax System at 800-829-4477. When calling, you must provide your Social Security Number (or your spouse’s), your filing status, and the exact refund amount shown on your return.

The IRS provides a series of frequently asked questions that provide additional information.

Beginning with the 2011 tax return, reporting stock transactions has become significantly more complicated because of the new requirement for brokerage firms to track the purchase price of stocks acquired after 2010 and subsequent years and to include that information on the information-reporting document 1099-B.

For several years now, the IRS has required brokerage firms to report the gross proceeds from the sale of stocks and other securities on the Form 1099-B. But just knowing the proceeds from a security sale does not allow the IRS to verify the profit or loss reported by the taxpayer. So beginning with 2011 purchase transactions, brokers are required to track the price paid for the securities and include that information on the 1099-B when that particular security is subsequently sold.

So that the IRS can use the new data to verify taxpayer profit or loss transactions attributable to purchases where the cost information is included with the 1099-B, the year’s transactions must now be broken down into six categories (the last two categories listed do not apply to stock transactions but may apply to sales of other capital assets):

Long-term sales where the broker IS reporting the cost of the security
Short-term sales where the broker IS reporting the cost of the security
Long-term sales where the broker IS NOT reporting the cost of the security
Short-term sales where the broker IS NOT reporting the cost of the security
Long-term sales for which no 1099-B is issued
Short-term sales for which no 1099-B is issued

The IRS has provided a new form 8949 for segregating the transactions within each of these categories. A separate form 8949 must be used for category so the IRS can match what the taxpayer reported as profit/loss for transactions where the broker reported the profit/loss.

Prior to 2011 it was common practice to summarize a taxpayers long-term and short term transactions and make a single long-term and single short-term entry on the old version of Schedule D saying “see attached” in description block and including the broker’s statement of long-term and short-term gains and losses with the return filing. Under this new regimen this is longer possible because brokerage firms are not segregating the transactions into the required categories in reports they provided to their clients.

This has created a reporting nightmare for taxpayers with significant numbers of transactions during the year (typically managed accounts) where the transactions can run in the hundreds. These taxpayers or their tax preparer are faced with entering every transaction on the tax return in order to accomplish the required segregation, which is time consuming and expensive.

Although not a perfect solution, many tax software products will import stock transactions from a spreadsheet and most brokerage firms will provide a spreadsheet of the transactions upon request. Once loaded each transaction coded as to whether the 1099-B included the cost basis or not. Most brokerage accounts use the term “covered” to designate transaction where they report basis and “uncovered” where they didn’t.

If all that is not enough, the reporting process is complicated where the securities traded were acquired by gift or inheritance. Special adjustments are also required for wash sales and when sales can

be attributed to a prior purchase of the same security.

There is little chance the IRS will change the new reporting requirement since they feel a significant number of taxpayers overstate the tax basis of their sales and this this new reporting requirement was designed to counter that practice. So, hopefully, the brokerage firms will come to realize the needs of their clients and adjust their reporting to simplify the process for their clients.

Now that the IRS has profit or loss matching capabilities, it is important to correctly report the transactions as the IRS expects to see them. Failure to do so could lead to correspondence audits or even face-to-face audits.

A regular form of fundraising by charitable organizations consists of sales or auctions of property or services at a price in excess of value. These are referred to as “quid pro quo” contributions or dual payments made that consist partly of a charitable gift and partly of consideration for goods or services provided to the donor.

Quid pro quo contributions typically include the purchase of tickets for sightseeing tours, all-expense-paid trips, theatrical or concert performances, books or subscriptions to magazines, stationery, candy, etc., and are sold with a generous mark-up that is designed to help the charity in performing its functions. In these cases, the charitable deduction is the excess of the payment over the value received by the purchaser-contributor. For instance, when tickets to a show are purchased from a charity at a price in excess of the normal admission charge, the excess over the latter (plus tax) is a charitable contribution.

Determining and documenting the amount of the purchase that represents the charitable portion is the key to being able to take a charitable tax deduction for quid pro quo purchases. Tax law requires charitable organizations that receive a quid pro quo contribution in excess of $75 to provide a written statement, in connection with soliciting or receiving the contribution, that informs the donor that the amount of the contribution that is deductible for federal income tax purposes is limited to the amount of the purchase that is in excess of the value of the property or service purchased and a good-faith estimate of the value of the good or services purchased.

Example #1 – A taxpayer purchases a cookbook from a charity for $100. The charity provides the taxpayer with a good faith estimate of $20 for the value of the book in a written disclosure statement. Thus, the taxpayer’s charitable deduction is $80 ($100 minus the $20 value of the book).

Example #2 – A taxpayer attends a charity auction. The charity provides a catalog of the items for auction and a good-faith estimate of the value of each item. The taxpayer is the successful bidder for a vase viagra cheap valued at $100 in the catalog, for which the taxpayer bid and paid $500. The taxpayer’s charitable deduction is $400 ($500 minus the good-faith valuation of $100).

Example #3 – A taxpayer pays $40 to see a special showing of a movie for the benefit of a qualified charity. The ticket read “Contribution $40”. If the regular price for the movie is $10, the contribution would be $30 ($40 minus the regular $10 ticket price).

**Disclaimer – Informational purposes and may not be appropriate for your situation etc. need to discuss with a CPA before acting on any information in this blog.

The IRS as part of its “Fresh Start” initiative to help struggling taxpayers is making installment agreements available to more people. The Fresh Start provisions also mean that more taxpayers will have the ability to use streamlined installment agreements to catch up on back taxes.
Effective immediately, the threshold for using an installment agreement without having to supply the IRS with a financial statement has been raised from $25,000 to $50,000. This is a significant reduction in taxpayer burden.
Taxpayers who owe up to $50,000 in back taxes will now be able to enter into a streamlined agreement with the IRS that stretches the payment out over a series of months or years. The maximum term for streamlined installment agreements has also been raised to 72 months from the current 60-month maximum.
Taxpayers seeking installment agreements exceeding $50,000 will still need to supply the IRS with financial statements. Taxpayers may also pay down their balance due to $50,000 or less to take advantage of streamlined payment option.
An installment agreement is an option for those who cannot pay their entire tax bills by the due date. Penalties are reduced, although interest order viagra continues to accrue on the outstanding balance. In order to qualify for the new expanded streamlined installment agreement, a taxpayer must agree to monthly direct debit payments.