The Tax Questions Blog

Archive for February, 2008

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Question: Can anyone help me with a TaxCut question?

I've gotten all the way to the end of the return where you can opt whether to e-file or not. I'm trying to e-file, but it keeps saying that I have one error that I must fix before it will allow me to e-file. However, it won't send me to the specific location of the error. Here is the message: "Inconsistency: The sum of backup withholding, withholding shown on Form 1099-G, and withholding on Social Security payments cannot be equal to or greater than the sum of taxable interest, total ordinary dividends, taxable IRA amount, taxable pensions amount, and Social Security benefits. Location: Form 1040 - US Individual Income Tax" It won't tell me where exactly the error is and I had ran error checks up until this point and it said there were no errors. I'm very frustrated. Help!!!

Answer: I discovered this too, and sadly it's a confirmed bug in their code that is due to be resolved with the Feb 6th/7th program update.

And yep, frustrated here and the alternative they offer is no big help either - paper file *sigh*

ASA Limited Reports Financial Results for the Fiscal Year Ended November 30, 2009

BUFFALO, N.Y.----ASA Limited , a closed-end fund specializing in gold and other precious mineral investments worldwide, today reported financial results for the fiscal year ended November 30, 2009.

WORK THEN DIE SUCKERS

Question: what does this mean in terms of child support/ unemployment?

(2006) There shall be a rebuttable presumption that a parent who receives unemployment
compensation has been terminated involuntarily and without cause. Their unemployment
compensation shall be included as other taxable income.

i took that off of this site:

http://courts.delaware.gov/how%20to/Support/?ChildSupportGuidelinesEdV121106.pdf

my ex is about to get layed off. i'm trying to find out if that means he doesn't have to pay child support.

Answer: This means that he will receive unemployment compensation if he is terminated and not fired. As for Child support - he may not make enough money on unemployment to cover child support. Which would totally suck. The cool thing is that he will get in big trouble if he doesn't pay and eventually he might end up in jail. Hopefully he will pay you something. I will keep my fingers crossed that he will continue to pay you.

Wiley CPA Exam Review 2013, Regulation $35.22 Everything today's CPA candidates need to pass the CPA ExamPublished annually, this Regulation volume of the comprehensive four-volume paperback reviews all current AICPA content requirements in regulation. Many of the questions are taken directly from previous CPA exams. With 3,800 multiple-choice questions in all four volumes, these study guides provide all the information candidates need to mas...

J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax 2013: For Preparing Your 2012 Tax Return $12.75 America's number one bestselling tax guide offers the best balance of thoroughness,organization, and usabilityFor over half a century, more than 39 million Americans have turned to J.K. Lasser foreasy-to-follow, expert advice and guidance on planning and filing their taxes. Written by ateam of tax specialists, J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax 2013 includes all theoutstanding features that have made t...

U.S. Master Tax Guide (2013) - Includes Top Federal Tax Issues for 2013 CPE Course $60.23 The U.S. Master Tax Guide (MTG) provides helpful and practical guidance on today's federal tax law. This 96th Edition reflects all pertinent federal taxation changes that affect 2012 returns and provides fast and reliable answers to tax questions affecting individuals and business income tax. The 2013 MTG contains timely and precise explanations of federal income taxes for individuals, partnership...

Hawaii's unemployment fund forecast a bit less gloomy

There's been a slight brightening of the picture for the state's unemployment compensation fund, though employers are still facing a more than 1,000 percent jump in unemployment insurance tax rates this year.

Tips from the IRS-Unemployment Compensation

Besides the business idea and its development, running a successful business means careful structuring and detailed planning. Especially in a time of global crisis, the location and the economic and financial environment of the chosen location are critical issues to be considered. Hard times are often a motive power that makes you see the weak points of an enterprise and makes you restructure it in a way to become more effective.

Australia is known with its complex tax system. There are three levels of assessment rules – federal, state and local. Its integration is a subject of discussions at present. At the federal level are imposed the income tax on individuals, the corporation tax on profits, the goods and services tax, the excise taxes, etc. At the state level are imposed payroll taxes, stamp duties on land transfers and other transactions, some taxes on land and properties, fire service taxes, etc. At the local level are imposed some taxes on land and properties.

Just the contrary Singapore is known as a location with business friendly tax regulations.

Some of the advantages of the Singaporean taxation could be outlined as follows:

CORPORATE TAX RATE

Australian corporation tax rate is a flat 30%.

In Singapore, the highest corporate tax rate stands at17%. Annual profits of first 300,000 SGD are taxed roughly at 8.5%.

Additionally, the Singapore tax legislation provides for another scheme of full exemption but only for new companies and only if they meet the following conditions: to be incorporated in Singapore; to be tax residents in Singapore and to have no more than 20 shareholders. In that case the qualifying company is given a full exemption up to 100,000 SGD of its chargeable income for its first three consecutive years of assessment.

TAXABLE INCOME SOURCES

Singaporean resident companies are chargeable to corporation tax on their profits arising from Singapore and on their profits arising from foreign countries when remitted to Singapore. The income earned and retained outside the country is not taxable. Additionally the dividends, the branch profits and the service income are exempt from assessment even when remitted to Singapore when they have been charged in a foreign state in which the certain tax rate is at least 15%. Furthermore, this rule is temporary changed for the year 2009 – for that year it is not necessary to fulfill any conditions in order to be able to apply the exemption.

Australian resident companies pay corporation tax on their worldwide profits, sourced within and outside of Australia. The remittance of the incomes is not a precondition for assessment.

DIVIDENDS

In Singapore the "one – tier" system is applicable. The corporate income is assessed on corporate level and this is final assessment. The dividends are tax exempt and there is no withholding tax with this respect.

In Australia the resident shareholders only receive tax credit when declaring the dividends in their personal tax returns. The credit is for the taxes paid by the company in respect of that part of the profits distributed to the said owners. The non-resident shareholders may not be liable to such credits.

DOUBLE TAX TREATIES

One of the ways of avoiding double taxation is the conclusion of treaties and agreements, regulating the assessment of certain incomes. Singapore has concluded nearly 70 treaties and Australia over 40. There is Double taxation agreement in force between the two countries as well.

GOODS AND SERVCIES TAX (GST)

The Singaporean standard GST rate is 7%, the Australian one - 10 %.

In Singapore a company is obligated to register for the purposes of GST act when the annual turnover is above or expected to be above 1 million SGD. GST registration threshold in Australia is 75,000 AUD.

Both tax systems provide for zero rates with regard to exports, where tax credit is still available.

Imports are taxable supplies in both locations, generally charged with the standard rates.

PROPERTY TAXES

The property taxation system in Singapore is centralized. The basic rate is 10% for industrial, commercial and let-out residential properties and 4% for owner-occupied residential properties. The rate is to be applied to the annual value of the item. The valuation is based on the market appraisal of the land and the estimated rent of other properties.

Australian system for property taxation includes land value taxes, other property taxes on real estates, stamp duties, water rates, etc. The rates and the payment terms differ in each state.

SOCIAL INSURANCE CONTRIBUTIONS

In Singapore the employers' social insurance contributions are made to the Central Provident Fund and depend on the amount of the salaries and wages paid. The rates are between 0% and 14.5%.

The Australian retirement system is called Superannuation Guarantee fund, where employers are required to make compulsory contributions, calculated on the basis of the salaries and wages. At present the rate is 9%.

A payroll tax is also due by Australian employers over the amount of the wages above a certain threshold. Both the rates and the thresholds are appointed by the state governments, e.g. for New South Wales they are as follows: 5.75% where the wages exceed 638,000 AUD. When determining the assessable amount, groups of companies might be treated as one single enterprise if there are related operations.

According to a research published by the Info-communication Development Authority of Singapore, many companies located their business in Singapore over the past years, attracted by the competitive tax environment in addition to geographic advantages, economic and political stability and advanced infrastructure.

GST treatment of telecommunication sector

The proposed dual GST is an ambitious bid to reform the present indirect tax regime with an aim to introducing a common market for goods and services in India with a uniform countrywide tax structure. Once implemented, the GST will subsume the current set of multiple taxes such as central excise, service tax, state VAT, surcharges and cesses. The first discussion paper on the GST, released by ...

Everyone has to think about putting aside some amount of money for their pension. One very good option is SIPP or Self-Invested Personal Pension. This scheme was brought out by the UK government in 1989 and the intention behind initiating it was to get more people to save for pension. 

 

Normally pension investment schemes allow people to invest into only a couple of funds, which are operated by the company's own fund managers. This means that investment options for such investors are limited. On the other hand, Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) investors can choose from a large number of funds from various investment categories and this gives them more flexibility in their investment options. Investors can decide to put their money into lucrative investments and enjoy greater benefits by investing in this way.

 

Flexibility to draw on investment is something that investors always seek out.  If you have invested into Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) and your age fall between 55 and 75 and you require money from it, you can take out up to 25% of your investment money as cash and in one go. The remaining will be provided to you in the forms of a regular income, for which you would have to pay taxes.

 

Tax is one thing that all investors have to look into and this is where investing into SIPP can be a real advantage as it offers considerable tax rebates. For example, a $1500 investment is going to cost just $1200. Those who come under the higher tax rate bracket, which actually benefit even more and this is something that's quite unique about SIPP and it is a feature that makes it all the more attractive for every kind of investor.

 

With so many advantages, don't you think you should move to a SIPP pension sooner? Join now and reap greater benefits in the future.

Specialist investments for your Sipp

Traditional pensions usually restrict you to a limited universe of funds chosen by the life insurance company. A low-cost self-invested personal pension (Sipp) offers much greater investment choice , albeit within fairly conventional asset classes.

MS Exchange Server administrators on regular basis need to manage various Exchange database related errors. These error messages sometimes make the life of the administrators miserable. Especially in the situation when they come on the edge of data loss. The situation of data loss generally occurs when the Exchange Server database (EDB) file gets corrupt. The EDB file can be damaged due to reasons like improper server shut down, virus infection, physical damage of storage media, etc. When Exchange Server database file gets damaged, MS Outlook cannot access users' emails, calendars, etc. from it, which make users tense. Moreover, the communication among the users gets stopped, which may also lead into projects delay because projects related information cannot be shared. At that time, the biggest challenge for administrators is to restart communication as soon as possible. But, to restart communication, they need to rebuild the Exchange database, which may leads into data loss that organizations cannot tolerate. However, if the backup of the damaged Exchange database file has been maintained then data can be restored from it by creating a new Exchange database file. So, wise administrators always create backup of Exchange database file to tackle such situations. In case, if there is no backup for damaged Exchange database file then the only solution for restarting communication is Exchange recovery.

During the process of Exchange database recovery, the damaged Exchange database file is first repaired and then users' mailboxes are recovered from it. However, performing Exchange database repairing and recovery is not child's play. It requires expertise and significant amount of time. Moreover, manually recovering Exchange database is also a costly process and even after that there is no surety that the data will be recovered with full accuracy. Therefore, Exchange recovery tools are always preferred for this purpose. Exchange recovery software accurately repairs the damaged EDB file in short span of time. Moreover, there is no need for any expertise because you just have to provide the file path and the software will do rest of the work. You can easily find a professional Exchange database recovery software in the market. But, while selecting Exchange recovery software, try to be tricky because selecting the best one from a large range of recovery software is not an easy task.