kcjenkins

Thanks for the update, Eric. I guessed it was something like that.

No need for copies " of documents submitted the prior year" since you already have copies, assuming you scanned them or copied and saved them.

Back when I had three boys making laundry, I'd have loved a front-loader. Once it was just two of us, tho, with a lot less to wash, a normal top loader is fine.

How to Get to Heaven I was testing children in my Sunday School class to see if they understood the concept of getting into heaven. I asked them, "If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into heaven?" "NO!" the children answered in unison. "If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the garden, and kept everything tidy, would that get me into heaven?" Again, the answer was a unanimous "NO!" "If I gave sweets to all the children, and loved my husband, would that get me into heaven?" Again, they all answered "NO!" I was just bursting with pride for them. I continued, "Then how can I get into heaven?" This time, there was no shout in unison. Finally, the silence was broken when a little boy shouted out, "You've got to be dead!"

http://www.wimp.com/findsbonds/

Ron, I appreciate your balanced POV. I hope you don't avoid this forum, we need sensible voices here. I know I am sometimes too far right, just because I feel the need to act as a counterbalance to the lefties. I'm trying to let some of their posts slide. Not easy for me. I loved your response to her claim that "I don't consider this article politically motivated...", btw. It was not a matter of specific untruths, but about the tone of the rhetoric that shows the political motivation. It's fine to post it, just don't insult our intelligence that way.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have loosened the “use it or lose it” rule for flexible spending arrangements for health care, allowing participants in health benefit plans to carry over up to $500 from their FSA from year to year. The goal is to make health FSAs more consumer-friendly and provide added flexibility. As part of the Affordable Care Act, the federal government limited the amount of money that could be put into an FSA to $2,500 a year, and the new rule would encourage a greater number of workers, particularly low- and moderate-income taxpayers, to take advantage of FSAs without worrying that they will lose the money they put into the accounts. However, it will be up to the employer to decide whether or not to offer this option to employees. Most employers have traditionally been able to hold onto any money left by employees in their FSA accounts. “Across the administration, we are always looking for ways to provide added flexibility and commonsense solutions to how people pay for their health care,” said Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew in a statement Thursday. “Today’s announcement is a step forward for hardworking Americans who wisely plan for health care expenses for the coming year.” Thursday’s action comes in response to to public comments requested by the Treasury Department and the IRS. An overwhelming majority of feedback from individuals, employers and others asked that the use-or-lose rule for health FSAs be modified. Comments pointed to the difficulty for employees of predicting their future needs for medical expenditures, the need to make FSAs accessible to employees of all income levels, and the desire to minimize incentives for unnecessary spending at the end of the year. A senior Treasury official told reporters on a conference call that there weren’t any comments from employers indicating that they wanted to keep unused money left by employees in their FSA accounts. For nearly 30 years, employees eligible for health FSAs have been subject to the use-or-lose rule, meaning that any account balances remaining unused at the end of the year are forfeited. An estimated 14 million families participate in health FSAs. Under current law, plan sponsors have the option of allowing employees a grace period permitting them to use amounts that remain unused at the end of a year to pay qualified FSA expenses incurred for up to two and a half months following year-end. Thursday’s guidance permits employers to now allow employees to carry over up to $500 of the unused amounts left in their health FSAs for expenses in the next year. Some plan sponsors may be eligible to take advantage of the option to adopt a carryover provision as early as plan year 2013. In addition, the existing option for plan sponsors to allow employees a grace period after the end of the plan year remains in place. However, a health FSA cannot have both a carryover and a grace period: it can have one or the other or neither. The senior Treasury official noted that under longstanding rules, if somebody leaves the job and if their employment terminates, they forfeit at that point any unused amounts in their FSA. Asked what happens if an employee has more than $500 left over in their FSA in two successive years, he responded that they would still only be able to carry over $500 to the following year. But he believes the changes will still help workers, particularly those in the low- and moderate-income brackets who are concerned about losing even a few hundred dollars that might be less of a concern for those with higher incomes.“This is something that may well encourage more people to contribute to these plans,” he said. The modification does not affect another provision of the Affordable Care Act restricting the use of health spending accounts, or HSAs, for buying over-the-counter drugs and other health care items without a doctor’s prescription. The senior Treasury official said there was no revenue estimate for the modification in terms of affecting the cost of the Affordable Care Act as the $2,500 limitation that it is modifying had not been codified into statute. Notice 2013-71 explains the modification in greater detail. There is also a fact sheet on the modified rules from the Treasury Department.

The Internal Revenue Service issued its annual inflation adjustments for more than 40 tax provisions, including the tax rate schedules, and other tax changes for 2014. Revenue Procedure 2013-35 provides details about the various annual adjustments. The tax items for tax year 2014 of greatest interest to most taxpayers include the following dollar amounts: • The tax rate of 39.6 percent affects singles whose income exceeds $406,750 ($457,600 for married taxpayers filing a joint return), up from $400,000 and $450,000, respectively. The other marginal rates—10, 15, 25, 28, 33 and 35 percent—and the related income tax thresholds are described in the revenue procedure. • The standard deduction rises to $6,200 for singles and married persons filing separate returns and $12,400 for married couples filing jointly, up from $6,100 and $12,200, respectively, for tax year 2013. The standard deduction for heads of household rises to $9,100, up from $8,950. • The limitation for itemized deductions claimed on tax year 2014 returns of individuals begins with incomes of $254,200 or more ($305,050 for married couples filing jointly). • The personal exemption rises to $3,950, up from the 2013 exemption of $3,900.However, the exemption is subject to a phase-out that begins with adjusted gross incomes of $254,200 ($305,050 for married couples filing jointly). It phases out completely at $376,700 ($427,550 for married couples filing jointly.) • The Alternative Minimum Tax exemption amount for tax year 2014 is $52,800 ($82,100, for married couples filing jointly). The 2013 exemption amount was $51,900 ($80,800 for married couples filing jointly). • The maximum Earned Income Tax Credit amount is $6,143 for taxpayers filing jointly who have three or more qualifying children, up from a total of $6,044 for tax year 2013. The revenue procedure has a table providing maximum credit amounts for other categories, income thresholds and phase-outs. • Estates of decedents who die during 2014 have a basic exclusion amount of $5,340,000, up from a total of $5,250,000 for estates of decedents who died in 2013. • The annual exclusion for gifts remains at $14,000 for 2014. • The annual dollar limit on employee contributions to employer-sponsored healthcare flexible spending arrangements (FSA) remains unchanged at $2,500. • The foreign earned income exclusion rises to $99,200 for tax year 2014, up from $97,600, for 2013. • The small employer health insurance credit provides that the maximum credit is phased out based on the employer’s number of full-time equivalent employees in excess of 10 and the employer’s average annual wages in excess of $25,400 for tax year 2014, up from $25,000 for 2013. Details on these inflation adjustments and others not listed in this release can be found in Revenue Procedure 2013-35 , which will be published in Internal Revenue Bulletin 2013-47 on Nov. 18, 2013.

Glad to help.

I think the next sentence is equally important: In the all-cash, off-the-books sex industry, workers can be particularly high risk and insurance is often out of reach. I have to wonder both how much of their "all-cash, off-the-books" income they actually report, and also wonder how much these "high risk" individuals will actually contribute to keeping down the costs, as we are being told they would? Sounds like all this group, while young, is going to be getting major subsidies, not contributing to other's subsidies. And given their "high risk' occupation, are more likely to be needing health services themselves.

Fantastic!

Now this ia a sign I'd love to have.................

VISUAL PUNS

No party is a success until somebody spikes the puns. What kind of jokes does Ronald McDonald tell? Hamburger puns Are we having pun yet?

NOPE. I love a good pun! Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.

NEVER GIVE UP ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QM6MNw7i6Ng

Tom, have you looked at the Audit Guide for this? I find the Audit guides useful when dealing with odd situations. http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Construction-Industry-Audit-Technique-Guide-(ATG)-Chapter-5 The form is 8697 http://apps.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/formsPublications.html;jsessionid=0ws7C9Ndb3NOxf73+YLoLA__?value=8697&criteria=formNumber&submitSearch=Find Exception for Certain Construction Contracts The look-back method does not apply to the regular taxable income from: Any home construction contract (as defined in section 460(e)(6)(A)) or Any other construction contract entered into by a taxpayer: (a) who estimates the contract will be completed within 2 years from the date the contract begins and (b ) whose average annual gross receipts for the 3 tax years preceding the tax year in which the contract is entered into do not exceed $10 million. See section 460(e). However, the look-back method does apply to the alternative minimum taxable income from any such contract that is not a home construction contract and, therefore, must be accounted for using the percentage of completion method for alternative minimum tax purposes. See section 56(a)(3) for details. Small Contract Exception The look-back method does not apply to any contract completed within 2 years of the contract start date if the gross price of the contract (as of contract completion) does not exceed the smaller of: $1 million or 1% of the taxpayer's average annual gross receipts for the 3 tax years before the tax year of contract completion. See section 460( b )(3)( B ) for details.

Mrs Grinch should either turn off her lights and forget Halloween, or just give all the kids a single 'fun size' candy bar and keep her mouth shut.

New Theory of Stupidity: The Stupon Brain scientists have stunned the world with their discovery of the "stupon" -- a subatomic particle given off by the human brain. When a stupon hits a brain cell, researchers say, that brain cell gives off two stupons. Then, the affected area of the brain suspends activity for a brief period of time while the stupons regenerate, which takes an enormous amount of energy. This is observable outside the laboratory during a so-called "stupon storm", when several stupid people get together. The classic sign seen during a stupon storm is the blank expression on the victim's faces after one of the group does something especially stupid. This is, in fact, the origin of the saying that someone appeared to be "struck dumb" by normal onlookers. For Example Example of Stupons at Work "The breakthrough came thanks to Youtube," said lead researcher Albert "Einstein" Heisenberg. "These guys filming themselves doing stupid things has been a treasure trove of material for us to study." Stupid people's brains are awash in stupons, Heisenberg says, which is why they are so stupid. They also emit copious quantities of stupons, which is why being around a stupid person can make you feel stupid, or even do stupid things yourself. Close proximity to stupid people for lengthy periods of time can actually cause brain damage in the normal person, thanks to "The Stupon Effect" on the normal brain, Heisenberg points out. Sadly, the researcher says, even smart people sometimes emit stupons. "If you put enough normal people together -- say, in a corporate meeting or session of Congress -- then they begin to trade stupons at an accelerated rate, making the people stupider and increasing the production of stupons in a vicious feedback loop." This is very similar to the way a nuclear chain reaction functions. Heisenberg and other researchers are scrambling to invent stupon detectors, which would work like carbon monoxide detectors and sound an alarm to clear the room in the event there were too many stupons floating around, as well as stupon-resistant hats, which would protect the wearer from other people's stupons. Observers say that should this anti-stupon hat effort be successful (sadly, the first attempt using tin foil failed completely -- for reasons obvious for the non-stupon-impaired), taxpayers should demand all federal employees -- especially legislators -- to wear the device anytime he or she is within 100 yards of any other federal employee. To help support this vital research, please have a credit card ready and call 1-800-STUPON to contribute whatever you can.

But the law he broke actually prevents NOM, the victim, from learning more. By Eliana Johnson A House committee investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of right-leaning groups has identified the IRS agent who leaked the confidential donor list of the National Organization for Marriage, a conservative organization that opposes gay marriage. NOM’s donor list, contained in a Form 990 Schedule B, which it is required by law to file with the IRS, was obtained in March 2012 by its chief political opponent, the Human Rights Campaign, and subsequently became the subject of several national news stories that centered on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s donation to the group. Though the House Ways and Means Committee, which began investigating the scandal in the wake of revelations that the IRS had inappropriately singled out conservative groups, has identified the individual who divulged the information as an employee in the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division, it can’t divulge his name to the public or to NOM. It can’t even confirm when the leak took place, whether the perpetrator was disciplined, or even whether he is still employed by the IRS or the U.S. government. That’s because of a peculiarity of the Internal Revenue Code’s section 6103, which is intended to protect the confidentiality of taxpayer information. The law makes it a felony to disclose tax returns or related information to the public, but in an odd twist, the results of investigations conducted by congressional committees or by inspectors general are considered the confidential tax information of the alleged perpetrator. Having committed a felony by disclosing NOM’s donor list, the perpetrator is protected by the same law he broke. “I am astounded at the ease by which an individual was able to obtain and release confidential information including private citizens’ names and addresses,” House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) tells National Review Online. “What makes the situation even worse is that the law, intended to protect taxpayers, is being used as a shield for those that perpetrate this wrongdoing.” Camp’s panel, nonetheless, has pieced together the NOM case and tells NRO that an IRS agent working in the Exempt Organizations Division — the same division that, until May, was under the direction of Lois Lerner, who retired under duress last month — leaked NOM’s Schedule B to Matthew Meisel, a former employee of Bain & Company, the management consultancy where former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney worked in the 1970s and 1980s and where he served as interim CEO in the early 1990s. Between his stints there, Romney founded the private-equity firm Bain Capital in 1984. After he obtained NOM’s donor list from the IRS employee, the committee says, Meisel then turned it over to the Human Rights Campaign. Neither Meisel nor the Human Rights Campaign returned calls seeking comment. NOM’s confidential Schedule B was cited and posted publicly in a March 30, 2012, report on the Huffington Post and quickly spread to outlets including the Daily Beast and New York magazine. The emergence of Meisel, a 2007 graduate of Harvard University, and his connection to Romney’s firm may shed light on the motivation behind the leak, which was used to hammer Romney for supporting California’s Proposition 8. In the midst of the presidential election, the Huffington Post cited NOM’s donor list, which it had obtained from the Human Rights Campaign, in a story arguing that Romney, through his super PAC, had donated thousands of dollars to NOM just weeks before California voters went to the polls for a referendum on Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage in the state. Though Romney had made no secret of his opposition to gay marriage, the Huffington Post said that by making the donation through his PAC, he had taken pains to conceal his financial backing of the controversial initiative. (All of the PAC’s expenditures and donations were publicly available information.) The document leaked by the anonymous IRS employee contained the names and addresses of all those who gave money to NOM in 2007. In testimony before Congress, NOM chairman John Eastman accused the IRS of publicizing the list “to facilitate the intimidation of donors.” He talks of a “campaign of harassment and intimidation” against the organization’s financial backers that has included boycotts of their business, physical assault, and the vandalizing of private property. Now, he tells me, “A number of donors are concerned about their names being disclosed.” He said in his testimony that the harassment “has now pervaded across the nation every time our donor list is disclosed to the point that our donors tell us ‘We are fearful of giving money to you to help support the cause that we believe in because our businesses and our family are at risk.’” The Supreme Court ruled in the landmark 1958 case National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Alabama that organizations like NOM have the right to keep their membership and donor lists private. Alabama, after seeking to banish the NAACP from the state, demanded a list of the group’s members, including their names and addresses. The Court ruled that forcing private groups to disclose that information interfered with their ability to “pursue their lawful private interests privately and to associate feely with others” and violated the Fourteenth Amendment. “It may induce members to withdraw from the Association and dissuade others from joining it because of fear of exposure of their beliefs shown through their associations and of the consequences of this exposure,” wrote Justice John Marshall Harlan. Eastman, in this case, is calling for more from the government: He wants the Department of Justice to prosecute both the unnamed IRS leaker and Meisel, the recipient of the leaked documents. “This should be a relatively simple matter,” he says. Also a professor of constitutional law, Eastman is point-blank. As if reading from the statute itself, he tells me, “Any person who inspects or discloses a tax return and knowingly is not authorized to have it is guilty of a felony, and we expect the Department of Justice to seek an indictment.” Only if Eric Holder’s DOJ does take up the case will the veil of privacy and the protection afforded by section 6103 be lifted.

Yep. there are so many different factors here, only sane choice is to send them ALL to an attorney before they do anything. As mentioned, 'lookback' can come at several points, from different sources, others who might be considered heirs based on state laws, which varies, can object and take him to court, just to mention a couple.

I'm guessing what he's really worried about is HIS tax liability. Your advice was correct, but you did not spell out one thing. You need to spell out clearly ONLY THE GIVER PAYS GIFT TAX, IF ANY, THE PERSON GETTING THE GIFT PAYS NOTHING AND HAS TO FILE NOTHING. Often, that is what they are worrying about. That said, there are other issues, like who pays for her future care if she gives everything away. And especially, who else is, or even 'might be' an heir, and how they would feel about it. Also, "assisted living" is only the first step, usually. It only lasts as long as the person is able to care for themselves at least somewhat. Once they need nursing home care, that changes, and some places that next step is part of what is offered, but not always. Clearly, any wise person gets legal advice in advance, before making any decisions on such an important issue, TO PROTECT BOTH THE GIVER AND THE RECIPIENT.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to improve the system it uses to assess the quality of the correspondence audits it conducts with taxpayers as the IRS’s own quality review system failed to detect errors in more than half of the IRS’s penalty determinations, according to a new report. For the report , from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, TIGTA evaluated a statistical sample of 127 of 2,913 correspondence audits that had been reviewed by the IRS’s National Quality Review System during an 18 month period and found errors with penalty determinations in 65 of the audits (in other words, 51 percent) that had not been detected and reported by NQRS quality reviewers. The NQRS is designed to provide IRS managers at all levels with estimates of audit quality from a sample of audits to use in identifying areas in which corrective actions are needed. However, TIGTA identified areas that could be strengthened to increase the accuracy of NQRS review results, enhance the ability of managers to identify and address quality problems with correspondence audits, and ensure that the NQRS sample is selected at random. Correspondence audits are audits that the IRS conducts through letters to taxpayers in which IRS examiners generally request additional information. They are generally seen as more cost effective and easier to carry out than in-person audits at IRS offices or the taxpayer’s location. In the report, which TIGTA released Tuesday, TIGTA found that auditing standards and NQRS quality measures need to be better aligned. The auditing standards, including the consideration given to significant issues, contain key requirements not evaluated under the NQRS. But this can create inconsistencies in how examiners conduct audits and in how the NQRS evaluates the quality of those audits to identify errors. TIGTA recommended that IRS executives and stakeholders should be provided with a more comprehensive snapshot of audit quality so that the necessary corrective actions can be recognized and taken in a timely manner. Only one overall measure of audit quality is currently reported on a quarterly basis by the NQRS to IRS executives and other key stakeholders even though as many as 71 items are reviewed. Finally, TIGTA pointed out that the random selection of audits for NQRS review could not be verified, and TIGTA was not able to confirm the statistical validity of the NQRS results. TIGTA suggested that the IRS ensure that the IRS’s auditing standards align with the NQRS quality measures, and that a more complete picture of correspondence audit quality is provided to NQRS customers on a regular basis. Audits also should be selected randomly for NQRS review, TIGTA recommended. In response to the report, IRS management agreed with the first two recommendations and said they plan to take corrective action. However, IRS management disagreed with the third recommendation, indicating that they do not have a cost-effective way to allow the randomness of the NQRS case selection process to be verified. Because the IRS’s conclusion was reached after the draft report was issued, TIGTA said the underlying details supporting the conclusion were not evaluated. But TIGTA pointed out that if the sample selection process cannot be verified, the IRS cannot be assured of the statistical validity of NQRS results. “The audit is one of the IRS’ primary enforcement tools to address noncompliance with the tax law,” wrote Faris Fink, commissioner of the IRS’s Small Business/Self-Employed Division, in response to the report. “Over the last five years, our statistics show we conducted almost 5.7 million correspondence audits. The quality of our work is important, and we thank you for acknowledging that we have established a comprehensive system to measure the quality of correspondence audits.” The IRS’s auditing standards outline the criteria that have been determined to produce a quality examination and are guidelines to assist examiners in the completion of their cases, Fink noted. The auditing standards are used in conjunction with applicable program procedures for evaluating case quality, but in the campus environment, due in part to the type of examination conducted and in part to the nature of the IRS’s processes, some auditing standards will be less applicable, he added. The campus examinations are generally narrowly focused and are limited to a particular schedule or issue, or they focus on stopping erroneous refunds. He said the IRS would determine if there are discrepancies between the auditing standards and the quality attribute coding and adjust the process or guidance as needed. Fink pointed out that the IRS regularly shares more specific information about program performance with executives and all levels of IRS management who use it to monitor, evaluate and take action to improve the programs. He said the IRS would determine if providing additional quality data with more frequency would be helpful. He explained his disagreement with TIGTA’s third recommendation about selecting audits randomly for NQRS review. “Audit cases selected for NQRS are determined based upon a statistically valid methodology designed by Statistics of Income (SOI) as described in the sample plan,” he wrote. “We ensure the randomness of a sample by selecting the ‘Nth’ case using a skip interval based on the number of required reviews and the population of work. Upon closure of paper cases they are placed in a designated area ready for potential review. The clerk pulls the cases by applying the skip interval as determined in the sample plan. Once the sample has been selected, the unused cases are removed and the area is stocked with the next day’s cases. While the process is valid, it is not reproducible because the cases are removed daily. We have reviewed our current system to determine alternatives for creating a reproducible process. Given the volume of open cases is over 300,000, the resources necessary to implement a reproducible manual process would not be cost effective. In the alternative, a systemic report could be created, but this would take funding and years to implement. Based upon labor and cost restrictions, we are unable to implement a systemic method as per your recommendation.”

Thanks, Margaret, I hesitated on the second one, but just found it too funny not to share.