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Paying a tax pro­fes­sional to rep­re­sent you before the IRS or any other tax­ing agency, is not for every­one and hon­estly could be an unnec­es­sary waste of money. But here are five sit­u­a­tions where it IS nec­es­sary? You are afraid or unsure of how to deal with the IRS or tax­ing agency on your own. […]

As hard as it is to believe, the IRS has con­cluded that some small busi­nesses do not report all of their credit card income. They esti­mate that $120 bil­lion in taxes go uncol­lected each year because of under report­ing by small busi­ness. They would like to get their hands on these funds! Recent media stories […]

The IRS requires all paid tax pre­par­ers to reg­is­ter with the IRS and obtain a PTIN. A pre­parer that is a CPA or an attor­ney are not required to pass a com­pe­tency exam because of the con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion require­ments to main­tain their licen­sure. Once a CPA or attor­ney obtains a PTIN, they are con­sid­ered Registered […]

The IRS had so much suc­cess with the two pre­vi­ous pro­grams; they reopened the off­shore vol­un­tary dis­clo­sure pro­gram for peo­ple hid­ing off­shore accounts to get cur­rent with their tax oblig­a­tions on January 9, 2012. This time, the IRS will keep the pro­gram open for an indef­i­nite period. They will announce a clos­ing date when they […]

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service announced today a spe­cial vol­un­tary dis­clo­sure ini­tia­tive designed to bring off­shore money back into the U.S. tax sys­tem and help peo­ple with undis­closed income from hid­den off­shore accounts get cur­rent with their taxes. The new vol­un­tary dis­clo­sure ini­tia­tive will be avail­able through Aug. 31, 2011. “As we con­tinue to amass […]

US expats have a lit­tle more time to file for the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI) thanks to Hurricane Irene. The IRS announced on Friday, August 26, 2001 that the dead­line has been moved to September 9, 2011 for those seek­ing entry into the amnesty pro­gram. The speed of infor­ma­tion dis­sem­i­na­tion has done an incredible […]

If you are adopt­ing a child in 2011, the Affordable Care Act increased the amount of the credit and made it refund­able, which means it can increase the amount of your refund.   The adop­tion tax credit, which can be as much as $13,170, off­sets qual­i­fied adop­tion expenses mak­ing adop­tion pos­si­ble for fam­i­lies who could […]

It is a nor­mal prac­tice for peo­ple to have bank accounts at a bank near their homes for con­ve­nience. This is also true for many American expa­tri­ates liv­ing abroad as well. Most expats set up a for­eign bank account in their host coun­try to make it eas­ier to deal with liv­ing abroad.   The IRS […]

There is some great news for those of you using your car for busi­ness pur­poses. The IRS just announced that the stan­dard mileage rate will increase to 55.5 cents per mile begin­ning July 1, 2011 for the remain­der of 2011. This rep­re­sents a 5.5 cent increase per stan­dard mile. That might help take a little […]

As a U.S. cit­i­zen work­ing and liv­ing out­side of the US and its ter­ri­to­ries, you are enti­tled to take advan­tage of the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.   United States cit­i­zens, res­i­dent aliens, and green card hold­ers that work and live out­side of the U.S. can exclude all or part of their for­eign earned income when […]