Have you ever looked closely at your W-2 and see box 13, “Statutory Employee” and wonder what it means? In this article I’ll explain this unique status and why it can be really important — I’ll be using a real life example of a client of ours who came to us with six years of unfiled returns. Effectively paralyzed by the number; too afraid to file as it looked like he would owe $800,000.
I've been with Parent & Parent LLP/IRSMedic as a tax resolution specialist for nearly three years. I love my time here --- because we are always looking to improve and are so focused on actually helping people out. Last year, our department developed an entirely different way to handle our clients with tax problems. We call it the Total Tax Diagnosis, or TTD for short. So how does it work? Read the email we got from a client below.
Reginald called our office in early 2014. He was a US citizen who had been living in Germany since the 1990s. He met and married a wonderful woman and they had a beautiful family together. All things said, he made his life there and Germany was his home. Reginald was very successful in...
An IRS claim for refund is, in most cases, a form you file when you ask for money back that you overpaid to the IRS. The critical thing: A claim for refund is time - sensitive — essentially 3 years from the original due date of the return, or 2 years from the date of payment. If you’re too late, ...
Our clients come from all over the world. And from all over the economic spectrum. We represent plumbers, hedge fund managers, other attorneys, and even IRS employees. What they all in common is that a IRS problem was causing them some sort of distress --- until they hired us.
Offshore disclosures and FBAR penalties are a focus of the IRS. The law, procedures and actual outcomes are constantly evolving --- and sometimes the IRS operates inconsistently. To...
Resolving a tax matter requires more than adequate legal representation. You may not realize how much you are in control -- even when you have a tax attorney representing you. While the IRS will always be slow to...
Any individual struggling with taxes owed to the IRS has two things to worry about: 1) their tax problem, which demands a shocking amount of attention, and 2) filing their current year's returns on time so that their overdue bill doesn't get even more out of hand. Unfortunately for many people, ...
At IRSMedic, we like to say that knowledge is power. Understanding how the IRS works and what rights taxpayers have can turn a bad outlook into a positive resolution. "Jonathan" hired our firm to help him with years of unfiled FBARs and unreported foreign income. Wanting to stay in compliance ...
This is a success story of ours that is one of my favorites. It shows that if Plan A falls apart and Plan B and C simply won't work, you just might have a Plan D that can save you from the brink. The IRS is complicated and beating a tax problem isn't always going to be clean-cut.
The IRS allows eligible taxpayers who are currently in the standard OVDP to be treated under the streamlined process. The streamlined process is worth considering because it has some seriously favorable penalty structures and look-back for unfiled returns. The streamlined program can be -- for taxpayers who ...
I want to tell you a story about the long road to victory. It's not an easy one, but it's important. This particular story had us playing our part, but it's more about the role of our client, "Victor." Victor came to us in 2012. He was sad, depressed, and his wife was working tirelessly to ...
One of my cases at IRSMedic was with a client named Samantha. Instead of having one of the more clean-cut cases, she was the unfortunate participant of an overseas and foreign bank account reporting disclosure case. She had inherited an investment fund from her mother, and her mother had ...
To succeed in an IRS tax debt forgiveness program you need to know what you're up against. Let me tell you about Steve. In 2011, Steve was in a really bad place. He had just gone through a prolonged, nasty divorce, and his one-man landscaping business had recently gone under. That would be bad enough, but we also have to throw in that his business had run up a six-figure tax liability. Like so many of our clients, Steve’s IRS tax problem stemmed from striking out on his own in hopes of building a fruitful and independent life.
Foreign life insurance plans are considered non-qualified insurance by the IRS, and as such, taxpayers are required to calculate and pay tax on what the IRS deems to be “income on the contract." It's not a very well known obligation for foreign filers, and neither professional tax software ...
A really solid accounting firm that we have collaborated with several times had a client with a foreign pension distribution that he mistakenly failed to declare. The accounting firm took the initiative and directed their client to seek...
Making an offshore voluntary disclosure is easy. Slap together a few documents and you're done, right? Well, not so fast...preparation is the key. Putting together a sloppy voluntary disclosure will only lead to more problems. How? For starters, your submission will be reviewed by an actual...
We'd like to say that when people hire us that we can immediately...or at least within months...get them that final tax resolution that they so desperately want. That's not always the case, though. Sometimes it can take years ...
Peter had one foreign account from when he lived in Turkey. He kept this account open primarily as an emergency fund for his family, many of who still lived in Turkey. This particular fixed deposit account would roll over into different CDs every couple of months. Every time the CD would roll over it would generate a new account number. But in Peter’s eyes...
Mr. S, who used to own several bread delivery routes in Ohio and ran up a big tax bill, finally called us because he was dealing with an IRS issue that "was a beast." He had been so beaten down by the IRS over the years that he truly thought there ...
Max and Audrey sold a daycare business they both owned in 2010. In 2012, the IRS selected them for audit. Initially, Max and Audrey thought they could handle the audit themselves. But as the auditor turned more and more surly, and their gut was telling them that this ...
Fred owned a package store in Willimantic. In 2008 he was audited by the State of Connecticut for sales and use taxes. Fred's CPA tried to help, but wasn't able to convince the auditor that Fred's sales were actually what Fred originally claimed. So the Department of Revenue Service (DRS) ...
This is going to be a different kind of success story. I'm going to talk about what you, as the taxpayers, need to do to have success during an Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program/Initiative (OVDP/OVDI) Opt - out audit.
When it comes to settling back taxes --- especially for taxpayers who have a potential of earning substantially greater income in upcoming years --- the IRS has a problem. One on hand, it is in the IRS' best interest to get a taxpayer to settle their...
Finding out that someone you trusted has embezzled from you - - - there's really not much more of an awful feeling. You ask yourself "why did they feel like they were entitled to steal from you when you were so nice to them." Well, here's the thing. It happens. It happens a lot. And many ...