I have been trying to get into two different IRS websites since midday yesterday but can’t. It appears that the IRS may be a victim of a DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack or there website simply has gone down.
When the IRS is telling people to use the Internet and they see this:
Well, I guess this should happen on the day that we find that Lois Lerner won’t be prosecuted….
UPDATE: Whatever was wrong with the IRS websites was cured mid-morning.
I’d love to be frivolous during tax season. But the inbox is full, the piles of paper don’t go anywhere unless I move them, and my next day off is April 16th. I can get a good laugh when I get an email letting me know that, “Russ, you’re full of ****. There is no law mandating anyone file a tax return or pay income tax.” Yes, I received such an email today. It appeared that it was over one page, but after the first sentence I hit the delete key.
Yesterday I wrote about Richard Hatch. He got 51 months at ClubFed for his bout of frivolity. Wesley Snipes tried to say that only foreign-source income was taxable. He got 36 months at ClubFed.
Tax Court judges don’t have the same sense of humor that I do about frivolous arguments. Michael Balice found that out:
Petitioner has responded to this motion by contending (among other things) that he is not subject to IRS deficiency procedures and that wages are not “income” because they result from the exercise of his “irrefutable right to work.” We will grant the motion for summary judgment and sustain the tax deficiencies and additions to tax determined by the IRS. We will also require petitioner to pay under section 6673(a) a penalty to the United States in the amount of $25,000 for asserting frivolous positions in this Court.
I’ll make this simple: Yes, Virginia, there is an income tax and you must pay it. Or as my favorite author, Rex Stout, put it, “Either pay [the income tax] or suffer a loss of privileges.”
For tax bloggers like myself, Richard Hatch has been a godsend. His antics have been, well, remarkable. While he’s no longer at the top of my Bozo Tax Tips, his story is one that prospective tax offenders should learn. I keep thinking that I’ll be able to drop this Bozo tax tip one year. Yet every time I think that’s going to happen Richard Hatch makes the news again. One tip I can give any celebrity: Be careful about your taxes. The IRS loves going after Bozo tax celebrities. So here’s the story that refuses to die.
For a tax blogger, people like Richard Hatch are wonderful. Hatch, for those who don’t remember, was the winner of the first Survivor and won $1 million. About 300 million individuals worldwide saw Hatch take down the $1 million.
Hatch received a Form 1099-MISC for his winnings. In the United States, winnings from contests are taxable. Hatch claims that CBS and/or the producers of Survivor promised him that they would pay his taxes. (Both CBS and the producers of Survivor deny this charge.)
Here’s what I wrote back in January 2006 when Hatch was convicted:
Mr. Hatch has cemented a place in the Bozo Tax Criminals Hall of Fame (a website I’ll create one day). Let’s look at his stupid not so good actions.
1. Hatch goes to accountant #1, find out that he owes over $300,000 in taxes. He goes to accountant #2, and the tax bill is around $240,000. (At his level of income, some differences in taxes owed is normal.) He then asks accountant #2 what his return would be if he didn’t declare the $1 million in Survivor winnings. Accountant #2 makes Hatch sign a statement that he won’t file that return (it showed Hatch getting a $4300 refund). He filed that return.
2. The IRS amazingly discovers his tax evasion. (With perhaps 300 million witnesses, even the most inept attorney could prove he won $1 million.) He’s offered a plea bargain: pay your taxes, and we’ll let you off fairly easily on the jail time. He accepts the plea initially, then changes his mind.
3. The case goes to trial. Hatch claims that CBS should have withheld taxes. His attorney might want to ask any seasoned accountant about what you should do if taxes aren’t withheld but should have been. (Answer: you pay the taxes.)
4. Hatch’s attorney can’t find the OJ Simpson jury. (Hat tip: Roth Tax Updates)
5. Hatch is found guilty. Roth Tax Updates speculates that his sentence will be around 3 years in jail. Oh, he’ll also have to pay those taxes, and interest and penalties. The maximum possible sentence is 13 years in prison and a fine of $600,000.
Hatch is now serving his prison sentence of 51 months. He recently appealed his conviction, though chances of it being overturned seem slim.
2008 Update: And they were slim. Last February, Hatch’s appeal was denied. As you might expect, 300 million witnesses can’t be wrong.
2009 Update: Richard Hatch continues to look for that needle in the haystack. He’s filed another appeal, though to this non-lawyer it’s more likely that he’ll be released after serving his 51 months at ClubFed than getting a favorable ruling.
2010 Update: Mr. Hatch was released in mid-2009. He then violated the terms of his release and was sent back to ClubFed. Finally, in October, Mr. Hatch was released. He’ll be spending the next couple of years in his home state of Rhode Island.
2011 Update: As part of his sentence, Mr. Hatch was supposed to amend his tax returns and declare the $1 million of income. He neglected to do that. Judge William Smith didn’t neglect to give Mr. Hatch a piece of his mind this past March: He sentenced Mr. Hatch to nine more months at ClubFed. Following his release from ClubFed (in December), Mr. Hatch will have 26 months of supervised release.
2012 Non-Update: Mr. Hatch was released from prison in late December 2011. He has filed a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court. The chance of the Supreme Court taking his case is about the same as a blizzard in August in Las Vegas. The writ was denied.
2013 Update: Mr. Hatch’s non-payment of taxes extends north of the border. Mr. Hatch owned a piece of property in Sydney, Nova Scotia. That property was sold in a tax sale after Mr. Hatch didn’t pay the property taxes on it for at least six years.
2014 Update: Mr. Hatch still thinks he did nothing wrong. Last year, on Oprah: Where Are They Now, Hatch told Oprah Winfrey, I never did anything deserving of prison time…I never attempted to evade taxes, which was what I was convicted of.” I’ll let the reader decide on the veracity of Mr. Hatch’s statement.
Judge Smith’s remarks from over two years ago have not yet sunk in to Mr. Hatch. “You can continue to proclaim your innocence…You don’t have the option of engaging in this type of game or negotiation with the court. It needs to be a severe punishment. That’s the only thing that will deter you in the future.”
2015 Non-Update: Mr. Hatch was silent on the tax front since his appearance on Oprah. It appears that this may be the last year I’ll have Mr. Hatch in my Bozo Tax Tips.
And to think I’d have had so little to write about if Mr. Hatch had just paid his $300,000 in tax in the first place.
It’s time for our annual rundown of Bozo Tax Tips, strategies that you really, really, really shouldn’t try. But somewhere, somehow, someone will try these. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
This is a repeat from last year, but it’s one that bears repeating. Unfortunately, the problem of identity theft has burgeoned, and the IRS’s response is pitiful. We use a web portal for secure loading and unloading of documents and secure communications to our clients. As I tell my clients, email is fast but it’s not secure. It’s fine to email your tax professional things that are not confidential. That said, social security numbers and most income information is quite confidential. Don’t send those through email unless you want to be an identity theft victim or want others to know how much money you make!
If I send an email to my partner in Maryland, it might go in a straight line to him. It also might go via Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamonga. At any one of these stops it could be intercepted and looked at by someone else. Would you post your social security number on a billboard in your community? If you wouldn’t, and I assume none of you would, why would you ever email anything with your social security number?
A friend told me, “Well, I’m not emailing my social, I’m just attaching my W-2 to the email.” An attachment is just as likely to be read as an email. Just say no to emailing your social security number.
If you’re not Internet savvy, hand the documents to your tax professional or use the postal service, FedEx, or UPS to deliver the documents, or fax the documents. (If you fax, make sure your tax professional has a secure fax machine.) If you like using the Internet to submit your tax documents, make sure your tax professional offers you a secure means to do so. It might be called a web portal, a file transfer service, or perhaps something else. The name isn’t as important as the concept.
Unfortunately, the IRS’s ability to handle identity theft is, according to the National Taxpayer Advocate, poor. So don’t add to the problem–communicate in a secure fashion to your tax professional.
When my friend Steve Evans posted a link to a story about Chipco’s president being arrested on tax evasion, that got my attention. Chipco was a Maine-based company that made high-quality poker chips. Many of the local casino here in Las Vegas have used Chipco chips. I have a particular fondness for them; one of my poker chip sets features these chips that I got to design back in 2002.
John Kendall was the president of Chipco (formally, Chipco International). They closed a couple of years ago. Those in the poker community thought that there closing was mostly due to the end of the poker boom. Another factor was Chipco’s method of paying employees: off the books.
Perhaps this could be my Bozo Tax Tip #11: Pay your employees off the books and don’t send withholding to the government. That’s exactly what Mr. Kendall did, and the money went exactly where you’d think it would go: his mortgage, country club dues, and legal fees for his personal bankruptcy. Maine Revenue Services investigated, and they weren’t happy. Add in underreporting of his own income on his 2009 tax return and you have the makings of six guilty verdicts. That’s what happened this past week in Portland, Maine. Mr. Kendall will be sentenced later this year.
A helpful hint to anyone wanting to emulate Mr. Kendall: Just pay employees in the normal way, on the books, and send the withholding where it belongs.
I now return to my regularly scheduled hiatus.
It’s been a busy Tax Season already, and it shows no signs of letting up. That means it’s time for my annual blog hiatus. You needn’t worry if you’re waiting for my annual Bozo Tax Tips; they’ve already been written and will begin appearing on Tuesday, March 31st. If anything truly momentous in the world of tax happens, I’ll interrupt my hiatus and post on it; otherwise, I’ll be back on April 21st.
I prepare quite a few returns with the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. The Exclusion allows bona fide residents of a foreign country or individuals who are outside of the United States for 330 days out of a 365-consecutive day period to exclude about $99,000 from income tax. Of course, you do have to be outside of the US (or otherwise qualify) to take the Exclusion. That minor distinction was allegedly forgotten by a Las Vegas tax preparer.
Harvey Cage owns CSN Tax Services. He faces a lawsuit from the US Department of Justice alleging that he not be allowed to prepare returns containing the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. The DOJ alleges in the lawsuit that Mr. Cage ignored the qualifications required to claim the Exclusion, and that he claimed it for lots of his clients who weren’t entitled to it. The tax loss to the US is estimated at $3.7 million. That’s a lot of clients taking the Exclusion.
What Mr. Cage allegedly did is noted in the complaint:
On behalf of these clients, Mr. Cage filed forms 2555 claiming a foreign earned income exclusion for which his clients were not entitled. Mr. Cage typically wrote on the top of form 2555 “CLAIMING WAIVER” and attaching a statement entitled “REQUEST FOR CONSIDERATION OF 330 DAY WAIVER.” These requests for waiver of the 330 day period were made irrespective of the Internal Revenue Code, associated Treasury Regulations, relevant Revenue Procedures listing of eligible countries, and IRS published guidance on the issue.
The waiver being referred to is noted in the DOJ Press Release:
This period can be waived when the Secretary of the Treasury determines, after consultation with the Secretary of State, that individuals were required to leave a foreign country due to war, civil unrest or other conditions that preclude the normal conduct of business, among other things. In implementing this waiver provision, each year the Secretary of the Treasury publishes a list of countries that have been determined eligible for waiver requests. According to the suit, Cage ignored the published list of waiver-eligible countries in filing for his customers’ exclusion of foreign earned income.
I’ve yet to file based a return with the Exclusion based on the waiver list. The DOJ allegations make it seem like Mr. Cage shouldn’t have filed any based on the waiver, too.
A federal court in Sacramento ruled against inventor Gilbert Hyatt last week. Mr. Hyatt is involved in a 22-year old battle with California’s Franchise Tax Board (the state’s income tax agency). This all stems over when Mr. Hyatt moved to Las Vegas, and that seven month difference has resulted in a case that has already made it once to the US Supreme Court.
The underlying issue is a residency audit of Mr. Hyatt to discover when he moved to Nevada. Did he move at the end of September 1991 or April 1992? At audit, the FTB ruled it was April (leading to an additional $7.4 million of income tax owed to California). Mr. Hyatt appealed to the California Board of Equalization. That appeal remains unresolved and that got Mr. Hyatt upset.
He filed a federal court case in Sacramento demanding that the appeal be heard. The Court dismissed the case; Mr. Hyatt will appeal. Meanwhile, later this year I expect the retrial of Mr. Hyatt’s intentional infliction of emotional distress damage award against the FTB for committing fraud against him. Last year, the Nevada Supreme Court threw out most of a $500 million verdict for Mr. Hyatt, but did leave $1.4 million of damages (based on the FTB committing fraud) and ordered a retrial on the IIED damages related to the fraud.
Most people are aware of Form 1099; that’s the form you send individuals in the US to report various kinds of income. There’s a similar form used when you’re sending paperwork to non-Americans: It’s Form 1042-S. These forms must be mailed to the recipient and filed with the IRS by Monday, March 16th. If you file electronically with the FIRE system, no Form 1042-T (the cover page used with the 1042-S’s) is needed. Form 1042 is the annual report of withholding.
The deadline for filing these forms is Monday. Like the deadline for corporate tax returns, this is a postmark deadline. So if you need to mail these forms to the IRS, go to the Post Office and mail them certified mail, return receipt requested. It’s the only proof that’s accepted (other than efiling the forms).
The deadline for calendar year corporations (both C-corporations and S-corporations) to file their 2014 tax returns is Monday, March 16th. If you’re not ready to file, simply file an extension. This can be done electronically, or download Form 7004 and mail it–using certified mail, return receipt requested, of course–with a postmark no later than Monday.
The penalty for late filing an S-Corp return is $195 per month per shareholder. That’s a hefty price for not filing an extension.