Saturday, September 1, 2007

WHAT’S THE BUZZ – TELL ME WHAT’S A HAPPENNIN’

* AccountantsWorld reported that former New York City mayor and GOP Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani wants to lower taxes, make permanent President Bush's tax cuts and eliminate inheritance taxes if elected. He also favors linking the alternative minimum tax to the rate of inflation.
.
Rudy’s tax plan is also discussed at length in “Rudy Giuliani Unveils Tax Plan” at the Tax Foundation’s TAX POLICY BLOG.
.
While I support making the Bush cuts permanent, I also agree with the response of Dan Meyer of TICK MARKS - “I would have preferred elimination of the AMT and on the inheritance tax I would prefer an increase in the unified credit (or equivalent) to an indexed $2-2.5 million without completely abolishing the tax” – although I would double his suggested unified credit.
.
*The Internal Revenue Service has issued a warning about a new phishing scam in which “an e-mail purporting to come from the IRS advises taxpayers they can receive $80 by filling out an online customer satisfaction survey. The IRS urges taxpayers to ignore this solicitation and not provide any requested information. The IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers through e-mail.”
.
I, myself, received the following email this past week, supposedly from the IRS (of course it was not):
.
"After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $268.32. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it.
.
A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.
.
To access the form for your tax refund, please click here
.
Regards, Internal Revenue Service"
.
I cannot stress it often enough - the IRS never uses emails to initiate contact with taxpayers. If you receive such an email forward it to
phishing@irs.gov, as I did with the above. BTW, it appears that the IRS has received more than 30,000 forwarding emails at this address reporting some 400 separate phishing schemes.
.
* Joe Kristan of ROTH AND COMPANY TAX UPDATES brings us the latest news on the hybrid energy tax credit in his posting “GM, HONDA HYBRID CREDIT UPDATE”. Remember, as Joe points out, you will not get a credit for buying a hybrid car for personal use if you are a victim of the dreaded Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). See my posting on “
The AMT and the Energy Credit for Hybrid Vehicles” from last December.
.
TTFN

No comments: