by Fresh Start Tax | Feb 28, 2019 | Tax Help
We are a Christian Tax Firm composed of Christian tax professionals .<>< 1-866-700-1040, Since 1982.
We are a full service tax firm and accounting firm.
You will have your tax return and or State tax returns prepared by CPA’s & IRS experts and we will assure that you pay the lowest amount of tax allowed by law.
Being former IRS agents we taught tax law.
We know how to save you money.
We have a nationwide tax practice and we are one of the oldest and most experienced professional Christian tax firms in the country.
We have clients in all 50 states. We have over 60 years of combined work experience at the Internal Revenue Service in the local, district, and regional tax offices of the Internal Revenue Service.
While at IRS, we taught tax law and we have on staff former IRS audit managers, revenue agents, and former IRS appellate agents. As a firm we have over 206 years of combined work experience, accounting experience and tax preparation experience.
We are A+ rated by the Better Business Bureau and are without complaint.
How do you discern Christian godly counsel?
Psalm 37:30 The godly offer good counsel, they know what is right from wrong.
Proverbs 18:2 Fools have no interest in understanding; they only want to offer their own opinions.
Proverbs 27:9 The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense.
Pick a Reputable Christian Tax Company/Firm
Picking a reputable company for preparation of your tax return is a very important decision that you will make. It is not just about the tax return.
It is about obtaining solid tax advise, tax planning and financial solutions for the future.
The goal of Fresh Start Tax is to help our clients in meeting their tax and financial objectives.
We offer a full range of accounting, tax and financial services designed to meet the personal or business needs that you have. Our preparation, accounting and auditing teams are highly trained and experienced, hands-on problem solvers who hold themselves to an extraordinarily high level of performance and accountability
You can trust them to have the understanding and the resources to do what’s best for your business.
We can expertly guide you through the accounting and auditing process, as well as keep you informed of all industry changes regarding corporate governance, audit and accounting issues, and financial reporting that may affect your personal or business situations.
Our teams utilize the latest accounting practices and audit methodologies to help you manage risk, stay compliant, and improve overall business performance.
We serve a diverse set of clients who make our work both interesting and challenging.
We have the technical knowledge and practical know-how to assist our clients in meeting their financial objectives.
Fresh Start Tax LLC provide business clients with monthly and quarterly financial statements and annual audits, compilations, and reviews. Although many of our clients need our services only once a year, they know that we are always available to answer their business and financial questions.
For many clients we serve as an extension of their office or as surrogate partner.
Businesses often need additional back office capacity for brief periods and find it more economical to use our services than to hire and train temporary personnel. Entrepreneurs often need someone who understands their business to give candid advice.
by Fresh Start Tax | Feb 26, 2019 | Tax Help
Many times after the Internal Revenue Service is processes your tax return on their Cade 2 computer system, changes are made to your tax returns because of issues and errors.
If this is happens, the IRS will send out an IRS notice or letter 21A
If you do not follow-up on this, the IRS notice or letter, the IRS eventually will proceed with follow-up enforcement action which include the filing of a federal tax lien, the levying of a bank account and possibly your wages.
The best thing to do is to pull out your corrected file tax return and match it up against the letter that you have that the Internal Revenue Service has sent to you.
From that point you can call IRS to try to correct or straightened out. If you can’t call us for a free initial tax consultation and we will walk you through the process.
IRS : We made the changes you requested to your tax return for the tax year on the notice. You owe as a result of the changes.
What you need to do
• Read your notice carefully. It will explain why you owe.
• Contact us is you disagree with the changes we made.
• If you agree with our changes, correct the copy of your tax return that you kept for your records.
• Pay the amount you owe by the due date on the notice’s payment coupon.
• Make payment arrangements if you can’t pay the full amount you owe.
Owe Money To IRS Because IRS Changes Your Tax Return, irs help + IRS Notice/Letter21A
by Fresh Start Tax | Feb 26, 2019 | Tax Help
A gig economy is a free market system in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements.
The trend toward a gig economy has begun.
A study by Intuit predicted that by 2020, 40 percent of American workers would be independent contractors.
by Fresh Start Tax | Feb 26, 2019 | Tax Help
What are the real IRS audit flags???????
Michael Sullivan Fresh Start Tax Expert Former IRS Agents Explain the IRS Tax Audit process.
I have to laugh out loud when I read all these articles from so-called experts about real IRS audit flags.
Most of them are very canned responses and a real obvious and are really not at the heart of the IRS audit flags.
As a former IRS agent I’ve read many articles on what IRS tends to do during a tax audit but unless you work the system and understand what the system is you cannot accurately tell people or explain to the people what IRS plans to do tax audits.
The Internal Revenue Service must follow the guidelines of their internal revenue manual.
In this case in a section 4 4.19.11.2.1.1 lays the outline clearly out.
This section clearly spells out what the Internal Revenue Service agent should do in working your case.
They do have a great deal of flexibility but IRS must have a base plan for auditing tax returns.
After years and years of collected IRS data, the Internal Revenue Service knows the items that provide revenue dollars for rates of return on an IRS tax audit.
Let the following be your guide to the items that IRS typically looks at during an IRS audit
As the Internal Revenue Service gets a tax return for an audit it generally has a DIF score or discriminatory index function score.
Usually it is attached and there will be a classification plan sheet regarding the items that IRS has flagged for auditor review.
After the manager or the agent look at the tax returns they can add or subtract to that classification sheet and move and then plan to forward with the tax audit.
As a general rule, the auditor has the ability to go back two years possibly three and ask for the current year tax return to be filed if they think it has audit potential.
The more experienced agents pretty much have their way with tax returns and can do what they want with the audit. Many times a good Practitioner can manage the tax audit hoping that the IRS will not go back before but just audit the given year.
Generally, the IRS selects classifiers who have a broad-based experience in knowledge of the tax laws and current procedure. They use their best judgment and experience to decide what this classification needs to be so they can proceed with the audit and collect the most dollars for the Internal Revenue Service.
It is important to remember that IRS in fact is a business.
IRS does measure the amount of time spent on every case and they looks at net income per return.
IRS generally looks at items they generally find provable results through other tax returns.
The Tax Return Process
Each tax return that is sent into Internal Revenue Service will have a keypunch operator pension all key items on a return those key items are gross income, adjusted gross income and line items from exemptions and deductions in other audit items that IRS usually dig from.
So basically every item is placed into a computer and the return is scanned based on a certain logarithm formulas to find out which tax returns should be audited because certain flags are present due to falling out of the national norms. The national norms are key factors.
Here is a list of items that the Internal Revenue Service will generally take a close look at because they have found in the past they produce revenue dollars. This is the base list for their classification plan.
Medical Expenses:
The Classifier must consider overall medical, dental etc., expense in relation to the AGI. IRS has a keen sense to what makes sense. If you understand what the available income that a person has to spend, it doesn’t take long to figure out whether they can pay the given expenses that are left, so the income ratio to expense ratio must make good common sense.
High medical expenses for large families, deceased taxpayers, or older taxpayers are usually not productive.
Interest Expenses:
Productive issues could come from payments to individuals, and closing costs on real estate transactions.
Home mortgage interest usually is unproductive unless the payments were made to an individual or if interest is a result of a mortgage greater than the indebtedness limit.
Charitable Contributions:
The agent will check for large donations made to any charitable organization are usually looked at. the auditor always checks to make sure the contributions do not represent tuition, a common trick by taxpayers.
Check for large donations of property other than cash.
Contributions in the form of donated clothing articles, furniture or a car can be worked by correspondence exam. However, if the issue selected involves obtaining appraisals or engineering reports or are complex in nature, it should be classified for field exam to work.
Consider the ratio of the contribution to the taxpayer’s total positive income.
Casualty or Theft Loss:
The agent will select cases that show no insurance reimbursement.
The IRS will watch for business assets, valuation methods and statutory limitations.
Miscellaneous Deductions:
IRS will scrutinize large, unusual or questionable items that do not correspond to the taxpayer’s occupation or income level.Select issues that are verifiable in a correspondence audit, such as union dues paid, work clothes etc.
Pension and/or Annuity:
The agent will check whether the taxpayer received a premature distribution from a pension/profit-sharing plan.
Also they will ensure that the amounts are not reported elsewhere on the return. Check whether the distribution qualified as a lump sum distribution.
Unreported Income:
IRS will consider if the income reported on the return is sufficient to support the exemptions and deductions claimed.
IRS must consider the sources of income and any omission of income. Compare income on return to the IRP documents, if available.
If the taxpayer lists his/her occupation as waiter, cab driver, porter, beautician, etc., unreported tip income is a productive issue.
IRS will consider excluded amounts from income such as injury or sick pay, forgiveness of debt, and disability pay.
Moving Expenses:
IRS will check to see if the taxpayer actually moved via IRS research on addresses.
Check for employer reimbursement. Also consider sale of the residence.
Alimony Deductions:
IRS will check to see if the social security number is a valid number.
Also, they will check to see if the recipient has included this income. Credits: Consider the various credits found on the return jointly with other issues selected on the return.
IRS TAX CREDITS
In the last couple years many unscrupulous tax preparers have been putting on returns tax credits that the taxpayer was never qualified for.
IRS started putting many filters in place because they had paid billions and billions of dollars back to taxpayers who never qualified for the credit. So there is a credit warning make sure you qualify.
They charged much larger fees and promised bigger refunds. some actually collected a percentage of the refund that went back to the taxpayer which usually is a sure sign of fraud.
So the IRS now has many filters in place to check all available credits.
Here is a list of the credits that the IRS will look at closely.
Credits include:
EITC
Child Tax Credit
Child and Dependent Care Credit
Education Tax Credits – Hope and Lifetime Learning
Premium Tax Credits
Qualified Adoption Credits
Keep in mind this is not a comprehensive list but a base list of what items on your tax return IRS will typically audit.
THE REAL IRS AUDIT FLAGS * by former irs
.
by Fresh Start Tax | Feb 20, 2019 | Tax Help
Former IRS Agents Explain the IRS Tax Audit process.
As a former IRS agent I’ve read many articles on what IRS tends to do during a tax audit but unless you work the system and understand what the system is you cannot accurately tell people or explain to the people what IRS plans to do tax audits.
The Internal Revenue Service must follow the guidelines of their internal revenue manual.
In this case in a section 4 4.19.11.2.1.1 lays the outline clearly out.
This section clearly spells out what the Internal Revenue Service agent should do in working your case.
They do have a great deal of flexibility but IRS must have a base plan for auditing tax returns.
After years and years of collected IRS data, the Internal Revenue Service knows the items that provide revenue dollars for rates of return on an IRS tax audit.
Let the following be your guide to the items that IRS typically looks at during an IRS audit
As the Internal Revenue Service gets a tax return for an audit it generally has a DIF score or discriminatory index function score.
Usually it is attached and there will be a classification plan sheet regarding the items that IRS has flagged for auditor review.
After the manager or the agent look at the tax returns they can add or subtract to that classification sheet and move and then plan to forward with the tax audit.
As a general rule, the auditor has the ability to go back two years possibly three and ask for the current year tax return to be filed if they think it has audit potential.
The more experience agents pretty much have their way with tax returns and can do what they want with the audit. Many times a good Practitioner can manage the tax audit hoping that the IRS will not go back before but just audit the given year.
Generally, the IRS selects classifiers who have a broad-based experience in knowledge of the tax laws and current procedure. They use their best judgment and experience to decide what this classification needs to be so they can proceed with the audit and collect the most dollars for the Internal Revenue Service.
It is is important to remember that IRS in fact is a business.
IRS does measure the amount of time spent on every case and they looks at net income per return.
IRS generally looks at items they generally find provable results through other tax returns.
The Tax Return Process
Each tax return that is sent into Internal Revenue Service will have a keypunch operator pension all key items on a return those key items are gross income, adjusted gross income and line items from exemptions and deductions in other audit items that IRS usually dig from.
So basically every item is placed into a computer and the return is scanned based on a certain logarithm formulas to find out which tax returns should be audited because certain flags are present due to falling out of the national norms. The national norms are key factors.
Here is a list of items that the Internal Revenue Service will generally take a close look at because they have found in the past they produce revenue dollars. This is the base list for their classification plan.
Medical Expenses:
The Classifier must consider overall medical, dental etc., expense in relation to the AGI. IRS has a keen sense to what makes sense. If you understand what the available income that a person has to spend, it doesn’t take long to figure out whether they can pay the given expenses that are left, so the income ratio to expense ratio must make good common sense.
High medical expenses for large families, deceased taxpayers, or older taxpayers are usually not productive.
Interest Expenses:
Productive issues could come from payments to individuals, and closing costs on real estate transactions.
Home mortgage interest usually is unproductive unless the payments were made to an individual or if interest is a result of a mortgage greater than the indebtedness limit.
Charitable Contributions:
The agent will check for large donations made to any charitable organization are usually looked at. the auditor always checks to make sure the contributions do not represent tuition, a common trick by taxpayers.
Check for large donations of property other than cash.
Contributions in the form of donated clothing articles, furniture or a car can be worked by correspondence exam. However, if the issue selected involves obtaining appraisals or engineering reports or are complex in nature, it should be classified for field exam to work.
Consider the ratio of the contribution to the taxpayer’s total positive income.
Casualty or Theft Loss:
The agent will select cases that show no insurance reimbursement.
The IRS will watch for business assets, valuation methods and statutory limitations.
Miscellaneous Deductions:
IRS will scrutinize large, unusual or questionable items that do not correspond to the taxpayer’s occupation or income level.Select issues that are verifiable in a correspondence audit, such as union dues paid, work clothes etc.
Pension and/or Annuity:
The agent will check whether the taxpayer received a premature distribution from a pension/profit-sharing plan.Also they will ensure that the amounts are not reported elsewhere on the return. Check whether the distribution qualified as a lump sum distribution.
Unreported Income:
IRS will consider if the income reported on the return is sufficient to support the exemptions and deductions claimed.
IRS must consider the sources of income and any omission of income. Compare income on return to the IRP documents, if available.
If the taxpayer lists his/her occupation as waiter, cab driver, porter, beautician, etc., unreported tip income is a productive issue.
IRS will consider excluded amounts from income such as injury or sick pay, forgiveness of debt, and disability pay.
Moving Expenses:
IRS will check to see if the taxpayer actually moved via IRS research on addresses.
Check for employer reimbursement. Also consider sale of the residence.
Alimony Deductions:
IRS will check to see if the social security number is a valid number.
Also, they will check to see if the recipient has included this income. Credits: Consider the various credits found on the return jointly with other issues selected on the return.
TAX CREDITS
In the last couple years many unscrupulous tax preparers have been putting on returns tax credits that the taxpayer was never qualified for.
IRS started putting many filters in place because they had paid billions and billions of dollars back to taxpayers who never qualified for the credit. So there is a credit warning make sure you qualify.
They charged much larger fees and promised bigger refunds. some actually collected a percentage of the refund that went back to the taxpayer which usually is a sure sign of fraud.
So the IRS now has many filters in place to check all available credits.
Here is a list of the credits that the IRS will look at closely.
Credits include:
EITC
Child Tax Credit
Child and Dependent Care Credit
Education Tax Credits – Hope and Lifetime Learning
Premium Tax Credits
Qualified Adoption Credits
Keep in mind this is not a comprehensive list but a base list of what items on your tax return IRS will typically audit.
.
by Fresh Start Tax | Feb 20, 2019 | Tax Help
The state of Florida, Department of Revenue, Sales/Use Tax Division is on the warpath against cash businesses. Do Not Be Intimidated, Fight Back Now!
We are a local South Florida tax firm that has been practicing since 1982 and are A+ rated by the Better Business Bureau.
We are the affordable tax experts for any and all state of Florida Department of revenue sales/use tax audits or appellate issues.
The state of Florida loves cash businesses. they figure that that’s where the most cheating goes on and they figure their greatest rate of return on sales and use tax audits come from cash businesses so they have dedicated teams of people to go out in audit certain cash businesses.
If you have received a Florida tax audit notice for sales or use tax and need affordable tax defense, we are the cash business experts.
As former IRS agents and government agents we know what they look for we know how they handle the cases and we know what your best tax defenses are.
Do not be suckered in or be bullied into the Florida Department of revenue.
Many times the Florida Department of revenue takes advantage of many unsuspecting businesses through intimidation and scare tactics.
Fight back by using former agents who know the system and are not bullied. also, do not be scared because you deal in cash. it is legal and is not against the law.
Also a big no-no, if you have received a self audit notice from the state of Florida Department of revenue do not send that in it is a trap.
What to Expect from a Florida Sales/Use Tax Audit
The Florida Department of Revenue audits businesses to find out whether state taxes were collected, reported, and paid correctly.
Although an audit is an enforcement tool to monitor and evaluate tax compliance, it can also be educational and promote voluntary compliance.
During an audit, the Department can help businesses identify and correct bookkeeping problems that could cause additional tax liabilities.
Audits may not always result in an assessment of additional tax, penalty or interest. The auditor may adjust a credit carryover or correct distribution without assessing additional tax. The auditor may even determine that a refund is due.
How Was I Selected for an Audit?
The methods of audit selection vary by tax. Some examples of sources used for audit selection are:
• Internal Revenue Service (IRS) information
• Information sharing programs with other states and state agencies
• Computer-based random selection
• Analysis of Florida tax return information
When notified of the Department’s intent to audit, you will be informed as to what records you will need to provide.
The types of records needed may include, but are not limited to:
• General ledgers and journals
• Cash receipt and disbursement journals
• Purchase and sales journals
• Sales tax exemption or resale certificates
• Florida tax returns
• Federal tax returns
• Depreciation schedules
• Property records
• Other documentation to verify amounts entered on tax returns
You must keep your records for three years for auditing purposes.
The Department may also audit for periods longer than three years if you did not file a return or payment, or filed a return or payment that was substantially incorrect.
After the audit is complete, you may review the audit findings and proposed changes. The auditor will give you a copy of the work papers and explain your rights, including deadlines for filing protests.
If you agree with the audit findings, you are expected to pay the amount due in full, if any. You have the right to protest the proposed changes if you disagree with them.
After the Notice of Intent to Audit Books and Records is issued, the auditor will work with you to set a date to begin the audit. The auditor will give you deadlines for providing information or documentation.
If you need additional time to prepare, or need to request a delay for other reasons, contact the auditor. The auditor will make every effort to accommodate your requests.
If you fail to respond or provide the requested information, the Department may issue an assessment and file a warrant based on the best available information.
Florida Tax Audit + Florida Department of Revenue, Sales/Use Tax + CASH BUSINESSES EXPERTS + Ft.Lauderdale, Miami
