Posts Tagged ‘IRS’

The Dutch Sandwich & The Double Irish: How Google Saved $3 Billion in Taxes

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

We’d never heard of a Dutch Sandwich (mmm… sandwich) or a Double Irish before reading this article about how multinational corporations avoid paying U.S. taxes.

But then, we don’t have hundreds of highly-paid tax experts and lawyers working day in and day out to help us find and exploit loopholes in the tax code.

But guess who does? That’s right. The Googles, the Facebooks, the Pfizers, and the Microsofts of the world. General Electric alone currently has 975 people on staff to ensure it pays the least amount of tax possible while still not technically breaking the law.

They must be doing a pretty good job, because last year, G.E.’s U.S. tax bill was $0.00.

It pays to have smart people helping you make decisions.


(photo courtesy of Google)

How are you when it comes to saving money? Time to revisit that budget?

Click here to learn more about the wild and wonderful world of taxes!

IRS Blows Minds By Building An App For That (Where “That” = “Your Taxes”)

Friday, January 28th, 2011

“Taxpayers waiting on a refund from the Internal Revenue Service can now check on its status using a smartphone.

The application for Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Google Inc.’s Android operating system also will give taxpayers daily tax tips during the filing season, the U.S. tax collection agency said today. Smartphone users may download the “IRS2Go” app for free, the IRS said.”

What do you think?

Would you use an app to check your tax refund status? What will be the next government-made mobile app??

A W-2 is…

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

A W-2 is a tax form that your employer gives you to help you fill out your federal tax return correctly. Basically, the form adds up all your wages and tips from that particular job. Every employer is required to send you a W-2 before the national tax filing deadline.

But the W-2 isn’t the whole story. If you’ve made money some other way – by working as an independent consultant, for example, or by collecting earnings on your investments, you’ll have to add up and report that income by yourself.

Can non-profits legally influence lawmaking?

Friday, June 18th, 2010

When it comes to advocacy, nonprofits are governed by the IRS (Internal Revenue Service), specifically under Code Section 501 (c)(3). This code effects charities in two ways regarding advocacy activities:

(1) it stipulates that charities may neither publicly support nor oppose candidates running for public office, and
(2) it limits a charity’s ability to lobby for certain legislative efforts. The amount of time they’re allowed to lobby depends on the IRS designation the organization selected, but the amount allowable usually ranges from 3% to 20%. Charities can often do a fair amount within these restrictions.

New Charities: Helpful Or Excessive?

Monday, January 4th, 2010

The rapid growth of the number of charitable organizations is raising some red flags for some.

  • There is concern that some nonprofits are exploiting the IRS’s broad definition of what constitutes a 501(c)3 organization.
  • The issue isn’t whether the charities are fraudulent as much as whether the applicants are following state and federally-mandated regulations and laws.
  • The IRS stands by its streamlined process that distinguishes between small and large organizations.

Facts & Figures

  • Last year the IRS approved 99% of all applications for public charity status (that’s more than one every 10 to 15 minutes!)
  • In 2008, $300 billion was donated to charities which cost the federal government more than $50 billion in lost tax revenue.
  • The tax code defines public charities as organizations that are “religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, to foster national or international amateur sports competition or prevention of cruelty to animals.”

Best Quote:

“It just seems utterly implausible that anyone can be doing due diligence in any way that constitutes a serious review of the applicant, let alone keeping an eye on them after they are approved. Why bother to have a review at all if you only reject 0.5 percent of the applicants?” – Rob Reich, Associate Professor of Political Science at Stanford

What happens if you don’t pay your taxes?

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Every taxpaying American citizen is required by law to file a tax return by April 15th of every year. Failing to submit your tax forms on time, or submitting them with incorrect information, is a crime that can earn you jail time if the IRS finds out, but you might wonder just how that happens. What is the process through which the IRS catches you and decides whether or not to press charges?

Businesses have to file tax returns for all their employees, so as long as you aren’t self-employed, tax infractions are relatively easy to spot. Even if you don’t work for anyone else, the IRS tends to audit the very wealthy more often, and since your tax records from years past are kept on file, the IRS can spot the discrepancy if you just stop paying taxes all of a sudden. The IRS also performs some random audits every year for statistical purposes, and every tax return that goes through gets a DIF score – basically, a measure of how suspicious it looks. If your DIF score is high enough, the computer program that evaluated your tax return will audit you automatically.

The good news is that the IRS generally won’t press charges even if they do bust you – they’ll probably just file a tax return on your behalf and then charge you for it. But anyone who files an incorrect tax return – or doesn’t file at all – is potentially at risk for jail time, so it’s worth it to keep careful records.

The IRS is…

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

The IRS stands for “Internal Revenue Service” and is the government organization responsible for handling everyone’s taxes. If something is wrong with your taxes, you may have a friendly run-in with one of its auditors.