IRS to close for five days IRS expected to target small businesses this year

IRS to close for 5 days
Earlier this month, attorneys working on the trial of Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law said that due to five-week-long sequester furloughs forced upon them, the trial must be delayed significantly.

“There is no solution,” David E. Patton, head of New York’s federal public defender’s office, told the New York Times.

Across the nation, government funded departments and agencies are being forced to send their employees on unpaid leave between April and September to stay within their reduced budgets. When the IRS closes its operations, phone calls will go unanswered and Americans seeking help with their taxes will not receive any assistance.

“I believe this is an unprecedented event that leaves taxpayers out in the cold,” Colleen M. Kelley, head of the National Treasury Employees Union, told FOX. Some believe that the furloughs will result in fewer audits this year, which could leave the IRS with less money in the end.

But Miller believes there is no other way to compensate for the slash in the IRS budget. On April 9, he told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government that “the American people will see erosion in our ability to serve them, and the federal government will see fewer receipts from our enforcement activities.”

Next week, IRS employees will wake up to a notice officially informing them when they will be staying home.

“Everyone is covered by this furlough, and that means everyone from the Acting Commissioner and executives to managers and employees,” reads Miller’s internal memo.
much more here
[link to rt.com]

IRS expected to target small businesses this year
“It’s just a matter of them going where they think the money’s at,” Steve Rosansky, president and CEO of the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce, told AP. “I guess if I were running the IRS I’d probably do the same thing.”

The Internal Revenue Service only audits 1 percent of tax returns each year and can yield greater taxes by targeting wealthy small business owners who might have underreported their earnings. As a result, the IRS is looking closely at small business owners in New Carrollton, Md., College Park, Ga., Beverly Hills, Calif., and Newport Beach, Calif. – suburbs that are home to wealthy and middle-class Americans, many of which are sole proprietors.

These five metropolitan regions are more likely to host tax cheats than other neighborhoods, according to a study conducted by the National Taxpayer Advocate, an independent office within the IRS. And those who own construction companies or real estate rental firms are considered by the IRS to be most likely to cheat on their taxes.

Despite the outcome of the study, which looked at tax cheat clusters from 2009, the IRS denies that a person’s ZIP code or employment status determines their likelihood for an audit.

“The IRS initiates audits based on information the taxpayer includes – or doesn’t include – on a tax return,” the agency told AL.com. “We don’t base audits on geography. City or state location plays no role in the audit process whatsoever.”

But data collected by the National Taxpayer Advocate did find that audits were more likely to occur in specific regions and target small business owners – even if the IRS denies using regional information as an auditing factor.
more here
[link to rt.com]

Last Edited by AKObserver on 04/24/2013 04:51 PM