I'd like to say "You're welcome" to all those non essential feather bedded government bureaucrats, the ineffective entitled educrats, nanny state regulators of worthless and counterproductive laws, ACORN and eco-fasicst NPOs whose sole purpose is to launder federal money into Democratic party campaign funds and a whole host of other swarming greasy thieving parasites who have taken their "fair share" of my blood over the last year.
But I can't because none of them even said "Thank you".
Oh, btw, now Obama's bad investing is going global. Fiskar, the Finnish electric car company that "we" gave US tax dollars to is going belly up. Well, I guess the good news is that we did't actually give them all of the $529million that we promised...
Bev, That's a great idea. I'm all for us not paying our taxes. Sadly, it's hard to get people to agree to that. I wonder though how many it would take before things would fall apart?
As for Fiskar, why am I nut surprised. A lot of stimulus money went overseas as well.
I did my taxes a month ago. But now I'm doing everybody else's taxes, so I continue to feel the pain. Plus today is our local gay pride parade, so I'm doing navigation for clients using Google to get around the parade route to our office.
Generally, it takes about 2 seconds for me to figure out it's gay pride day based on 3 factors:
1) It's always about this time of year; 2) Streets around the office are closed inconveniently; 3) There're several men in leather biker outfits rushing towards 3rd street.
Oddly, no families are rushing towards 3rd street. The 8 token lesbians probably showed up early to hit the food stalls.
As an aside, and since you're in the industry, how trustworthy are these places that do taxes? If you wanted to see about finding ways to minimize your taxes, can they do that or do they just crunch the numbers?
Bev, I almost wrote about that last week, but I didn't want to be accused of blasting Mark Levin twice in one week. He's gone bat sh*t paranoid on this one as well.
This commission has ZERO power, so it's irrelevant.
But that said, this is actually an idea conservatives should embrace. Right now our election laws are pretty much at the far end of how liberals would set them up. Creating a single national policy would allow us to impose things like Voter ID laws without triggering the suggestion that southern states are just trying to keep blacks from voting. It would also let us clean up things like Florida and Minnesota and the failure to get military ballots out on time.
Andrew, it totally depends on the company. The ones that advertise on the radio aren't your best bet, nor are the H&R Block's of the world (who specialize in making refund anticipation loans). The advertisers will demand retainers, and the H&R Block's will push numbers around.
Don't get me wrong, though, there's as much complexity in the law at the low income level versus the middle versus the high versus the very high income level. It's a question of what you need and what they can provide.
Your best bet is to get a reference to a CPA. We don't advertise, but we are members of the AICPA and the state organization for CPAs. We have gotten a couple of referrals from those societies, but the rest come from reference, either through attorneys we work with, investment advisers, sports agents, payroll companies, and of course, existing clients. Our profession has a lot of restrictions about advertising, and as such, we don't even bother with it.
Most of what I do to save taxes involves entity structuring for entrepreneurs and their families. It might involve an LLC taxed as an S corp for their trade or business, add a retirement plan (it could be a solo 401k or even a defined benefit pension plan, depending on how much complexity the client can stand), add a management type C corporation to implement a health reimbursement plan to cover your and your family's medical expenses and get a 1-for-1 write off, etc. We try to get athletes and entertainers to establish residence in tax free states, but we also deal with debt forgiveness income from foreclosures. I'm not going to be the guy you come to if you need Fortune 500 sized corporate planning, though.
We do have some techniques that aren't universally implemented (like allocating state taxes paid above the line to directly offset schedule C,D,E, and F income, which was an idea from a former IRS agent turned lecturer), and we can advise on large scale tax issues, because our main partner is a former partner of one of the Big 4 (it was one of the Big 8 when he was a partner, though).
So ask your clients, ask your fellow attorneys, ask your investment adviser for a reference. Cross reference with the AICPA. At the least, you'll get a consultation to see if they can actually do anything.
I fill my numbers in TurboTax, it tells me I need to claim the regular whatevers, I file, my refund goes into my savings account. Being a no-account has its perks once a year...
rlaWTX, A couple years ago, I had various things going on with my practice and it took me four solid days to finish my taxes. I almost went homicidal insane at that point.
I did my taxes myself for the first time a couple months ago. Since I only had two numbers to work with (total pay from my job that doesn't withhold along with student loan money), I refused to pay someone else to do it.
I used TurboTax and with one or two exceptions, it was quite easy to use. I figured I'd have to pay taxes since my employer doesn't take anything out, but since I'm a student and could include expenses (books, supplies, etc.), I ended up getting several hundred dollars back!
You get a lump sum of income based on a multi-year project. You have capital gains and losses (short and long term, personal and business). You have employees. You have multiple retirement plans. You have foreign income. Your income hits the point where you need to do your taxes twice because the IRS wants to phase out your deductions.
After a while, your eyes roll into the back of your head. You find yourself surfing the net looking for instructions on how to built an atomic bomb. You find them. You buy 1,000 day-go watches for their radiacti---
Perfectly Legal Things I Feel No Ethical Qualms About Doing As a Tax Planner Given the Current State of Our Government:
Unmarried couple has a child together and lives together. Father is self-employed consultant. Mother is homemaker. Father wants to claim Mother as dependent.
We say, "Sure that's perfectly legal. And pretty much useless to you."
Instead, we have Father hire Mother for administrative services (which she provides on a small scale), pay her a small salary, then she files taxes as head of household and claims earned income credit. $5,000 refund of taxes which she never had to pay in the first place, versus $500 savings on Father's personal return.
T-Rav - Is your "aunt" code for some kind of offshore secret account? [I won't tell anyone, I swear!] I would love to use your "aunt" if it means I don't have to pay anything...:-)
T-Rav, Count yourself lucky that you only had to pay $450. I've paid enough in my lifetime to support a small town. Uncle Sam seems to design his tax rules to get me personally.
As for this "Aunt Offshore," I would be interested too. ;P
That aside, however, you're from New York... can't your local political leaders get you a deduction for all your income or something? I hear Charlie Rangel is good at stuff like that.
Andrew - As we have had even MORE elected officials arrested since I reported on Thursday - YES, IT IS TRUE!! - maybe they aren't the best to ask unless I'm lookin' for "three hots and a cot" for awhile.
Though you have a point about Charlie since he WAS the Chairman of Ways & Means. One would think he'd know ALL the loop holes since he wrote most of them.
30 comments:
I'd like to say "You're welcome" to all those non essential feather bedded government bureaucrats, the ineffective entitled educrats, nanny state regulators of worthless and counterproductive laws, ACORN and eco-fasicst NPOs whose sole purpose is to launder federal money into Democratic party campaign funds and a whole host of other swarming greasy thieving parasites who have taken their "fair share" of my blood over the last year.
But I can't because none of them even said "Thank you".
What would happen if we all just stopped paying our taxes?
Oh, btw, now Obama's bad investing is going global. Fiskar, the Finnish electric car company that "we" gave US tax dollars to is going belly up. Well, I guess the good news is that we did't actually give them all of the $529million that we promised...
Bev, That's a great idea. I'm all for us not paying our taxes. Sadly, it's hard to get people to agree to that. I wonder though how many it would take before things would fall apart?
As for Fiskar, why am I nut surprised. A lot of stimulus money went overseas as well.
K, They are absolutely inconsiderate.
Bev: What would happen if we all just stopped paying our taxes?
A question that haunts the nightmares of over half the population of western civilization these days.
Andrew: Lords and masters never are. It undermines slave discipline.
I did my taxes a month ago. But now I'm doing everybody else's taxes, so I continue to feel the pain. Plus today is our local gay pride parade, so I'm doing navigation for clients using Google to get around the parade route to our office.
Generally, it takes about 2 seconds for me to figure out it's gay pride day based on 3 factors:
1) It's always about this time of year;
2) Streets around the office are closed inconveniently;
3) There're several men in leather biker outfits rushing towards 3rd street.
Oddly, no families are rushing towards 3rd street. The 8 token lesbians probably showed up early to hit the food stalls.
wahsatchmo, I need to do mine still. Arg.
As an aside, and since you're in the industry, how trustworthy are these places that do taxes? If you wanted to see about finding ways to minimize your taxes, can they do that or do they just crunch the numbers?
K, Isn't that the truth!
If I were a paranoid person, I might have problem with this "Executive Order signed by Obama last week...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/03/28/executive-order-establishment-presidential-commission-election-administr
Funny, this never made it to the press.
Bev, I almost wrote about that last week, but I didn't want to be accused of blasting Mark Levin twice in one week. He's gone bat sh*t paranoid on this one as well.
This commission has ZERO power, so it's irrelevant.
But that said, this is actually an idea conservatives should embrace. Right now our election laws are pretty much at the far end of how liberals would set them up. Creating a single national policy would allow us to impose things like Voter ID laws without triggering the suggestion that southern states are just trying to keep blacks from voting. It would also let us clean up things like Florida and Minnesota and the failure to get military ballots out on time.
Andrew, it totally depends on the company. The ones that advertise on the radio aren't your best bet, nor are the H&R Block's of the world (who specialize in making refund anticipation loans). The advertisers will demand retainers, and the H&R Block's will push numbers around.
Don't get me wrong, though, there's as much complexity in the law at the low income level versus the middle versus the high versus the very high income level. It's a question of what you need and what they can provide.
Your best bet is to get a reference to a CPA. We don't advertise, but we are members of the AICPA and the state organization for CPAs. We have gotten a couple of referrals from those societies, but the rest come from reference, either through attorneys we work with, investment advisers, sports agents, payroll companies, and of course, existing clients. Our profession has a lot of restrictions about advertising, and as such, we don't even bother with it.
Most of what I do to save taxes involves entity structuring for entrepreneurs and their families. It might involve an LLC taxed as an S corp for their trade or business, add a retirement plan (it could be a solo 401k or even a defined benefit pension plan, depending on how much complexity the client can stand), add a management type C corporation to implement a health reimbursement plan to cover your and your family's medical expenses and get a 1-for-1 write off, etc. We try to get athletes and entertainers to establish residence in tax free states, but we also deal with debt forgiveness income from foreclosures. I'm not going to be the guy you come to if you need Fortune 500 sized corporate planning, though.
We do have some techniques that aren't universally implemented (like allocating state taxes paid above the line to directly offset schedule C,D,E, and F income, which was an idea from a former IRS agent turned lecturer), and we can advise on large scale tax issues, because our main partner is a former partner of one of the Big 4 (it was one of the Big 8 when he was a partner, though).
So ask your clients, ask your fellow attorneys, ask your investment adviser for a reference. Cross reference with the AICPA. At the least, you'll get a consultation to see if they can actually do anything.
wahsatchmo, your post just gave me a headache.
I fill my numbers in TurboTax, it tells me I need to claim the regular whatevers, I file, my refund goes into my savings account. Being a no-account has its perks once a year...
rlaWTX, A couple years ago, I had various things going on with my practice and it took me four solid days to finish my taxes. I almost went homicidal insane at that point.
congrats on surviving and not serving time!
Thanks! I'm honestly not sure how I didn't kill anyone. I think it was because my secretary kept bringing me donuts.
I did my taxes myself for the first time a couple months ago. Since I only had two numbers to work with (total pay from my job that doesn't withhold along with student loan money), I refused to pay someone else to do it.
I used TurboTax and with one or two exceptions, it was quite easy to use. I figured I'd have to pay taxes since my employer doesn't take anything out, but since I'm a student and could include expenses (books, supplies, etc.), I ended up getting several hundred dollars back!
[knock on wood]
Scott, Imagine this...
You get a lump sum of income based on a multi-year project. You have capital gains and losses (short and long term, personal and business). You have employees. You have multiple retirement plans. You have foreign income. Your income hits the point where you need to do your taxes twice because the IRS wants to phase out your deductions.
After a while, your eyes roll into the back of your head. You find yourself surfing the net looking for instructions on how to built an atomic bomb. You find them. You buy 1,000 day-go watches for their radiacti---
Oh, donuts! :)
Perfectly Legal Things I Feel No Ethical Qualms About Doing As a Tax Planner Given the Current State of Our Government:
Unmarried couple has a child together and lives together. Father is self-employed consultant. Mother is homemaker. Father wants to claim Mother as dependent.
We say, "Sure that's perfectly legal. And pretty much useless to you."
Instead, we have Father hire Mother for administrative services (which she provides on a small scale), pay her a small salary, then she files taxes as head of household and claims earned income credit. $5,000 refund of taxes which she never had to pay in the first place, versus $500 savings on Father's personal return.
Take that, TurboTax!
Nice! :D
Take that TurboTax indeed!
How about I skip all that and go straight to the donuts instead? :-D
I wish I could have skipped it.
Use Twinkies instead. I hear they come with their own legal defense team.
We just used my aunt to pay our taxes. Easy-peasy. Except then I had to pay $450.
T-Rav - Is your "aunt" code for some kind of offshore secret account? [I won't tell anyone, I swear!] I would love to use your "aunt" if it means I don't have to pay anything...:-)
Actually, my taxes are fairly easy since I don't own any property and only a few charitable deductions, so I use TurboTax online.
I may have to get a real tax person if I have to fill out the new HCR tax form which I hear is going to be about 14 pages in its first draft anyway.
T-Rav, Count yourself lucky that you only had to pay $450. I've paid enough in my lifetime to support a small town. Uncle Sam seems to design his tax rules to get me personally.
Bev, I could use the Twinkie Legal Team! LOL!
As for this "Aunt Offshore," I would be interested too. ;P
That aside, however, you're from New York... can't your local political leaders get you a deduction for all your income or something? I hear Charlie Rangel is good at stuff like that.
Andrew - As we have had even MORE elected officials arrested since I reported on Thursday - YES, IT IS TRUE!! - maybe they aren't the best to ask unless I'm lookin' for "three hots and a cot" for awhile.
Though you have a point about Charlie since he WAS the Chairman of Ways & Means. One would think he'd know ALL the loop holes since he wrote most of them.
Bev, I refuse to answer that question on the grounds it may incriminate me. But yes.
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