September 2013 A federal district court, in the matter of Bagley, No. 2:10-cv-00483-RT-FMO (C.D. Cal. 8/5/13), has determined that Richard Bagley was engaged in the trade or business of pursuing False Claims Act lawsuits against his former employer and was thereby entitled to deduct legal expenses related to that endeavor as ordinary and necessary business expenses. Mr. Bagley was the chief financial [...]
February 2013 With the government perspective that obtaining tax dollars now is good and we can worry about later…well later, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 allows workers with regular 401(k) account balances to move them into a Roth 401(k). The conversion allows a shifting of the timing (and generally the amount) of taxes [...]
August 2012 The Ninth Circuit decided a taxation case of first impression involving whether a qui tam or whistleblower recovery provides a taxable capital gain from a sale of property, or ordinary taxable income. The District Court in Los Angeles, and the Ninth Circuit both agreed with the IRS that the higher rate of taxation [...]
March 2012 Reasonable compensation questions affect millions of closely-held corporations whose owners actively participate in the business. The issue involves how much payroll taxes are due from the earnings of the business. Amounts not characterized as salary are reported as S-corporation income on the shareholder’s personal tax return, where it is not subject to payroll [...]
September 2011 In September 2011, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued Accounting Standards Update 2011-08, entitled “Testing Goodwill for Impairment”. This amends guidance in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) Topic 350 involving goodwill and other intangible assets. Because early adoption is allowed, and the new guidance significantly simplifies the current procedures, expect the new [...]
September 2009 Beginning in November 2009, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will begin audits under its latest National Research Program (NRP). The IRS started the NRP in 2001 to measure the “tax gap.” The tax gap is the difference between taxes that are voluntarily reported, versus the taxes the IRS estimates are actually owed with [...]