The Tax Preparation Blog

Archive for May, 2006

One of the sought after careers in finance is accounting. Crunching numbers, keeping financial records and calculating assets and liabilities are the usual responsibilities of an accountant. Because of this, an accountant’s work is usually dubbed as monotonous, boring and dull. Of course, this impression lasted until forensic accounting came into the picture.

As the world becomes more modernized, so will criminal intents, scams and schemes. These are designed to cheat monetary transactions for personal gain. This is where financial investigators come in, the contemporary detectives in the world of numbers, figures and facts.

How did Forensic Accounting Evolved?

Being one of the newest career paths in the world of finance, scandals in the business arena gave birth to forensic accounting. Heeding the call of the financial community, accountants were given a new avenue for a career change. Bringing much excitement and color to the once routinely job, forensic accountants or detectives as we may want to call them detect scams, fraudulent transactions, pyramiding and other criminal acts within a business.

They also aid the company in detecting potential bad business pursuits, find one-sided deals, and finding personnel within the business circle who are either dishonest or cunning in reaping all the benefits for themselves. Their job is to detect, establish evidence beyond refute, and testify before the court regarding the criminal act.

Being Qualified for the Job

It is not enough for you to have an impressive resume or an accounting degree to qualify for this type of job. You have to be sharp, analytical, determined and well-versed in public relations. Not only will you apply your skills in computing numbers, but you will have to study certain laws, company rules and commercial, banking and other financial transactions.

As forensic accounting involves a specialized kind of auditing, you are required to take trainings and seminars to improve your skills. A legal background would also be an edge, but this is not necessarily required. All you have to do is to know the basics in legal and evidentiary procedures.

To become an expert in this field, you will also have to be tough and competent enough not to succumb to pressure from any investigation being conducted against the business.

Detectives in the World of Finance

Armed with knowledge of the law and analyzing figures, a forensic accountant may either be an external or internal auditor. The SEC or the company from time to time demand regular auditing to make sure that everything is in order. Accountants of this academic caliber should be prepared to check and probe cases of bankruptcy, fraud and other forms of litigations. Also, they must be able to present legal and commercial documents to back up their claims in court.

A good financial detective must be convincing, credible and competent enough to serve as an expert witness as required by any court taking cognizance of the legal battle. Testamentary and documentary evidence must also be in conformity to formats required of legal documents.

Therefore, any forensic accountant must be familiar with legal terms and procedural law. His job, when testifying in court, is to pinpoint the flaws and other possible causes that might have caused the legal controversy. GP

What to do when you are hit by surprise late-filing penalty

All is not lost if you can demonstrate that you did, indeed, file before the deadline

Disability Tax Credit Services – Winnipeg

Question: Seattle is one of the most liberal and democratic cities in the US, then why is there no state income tax?

Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong supporter of low tax rates, as I believe in many conservative economic policies. But it just seems strange to me that other liberal and democratic party strongholds (like California and NY, for example) are taxing people highly in accordance with their economic policies, while here stands Washington with no state income tax – that means the maximum anyone pays is the federal personal income tax at a top rate of 35%.

Answer: Uh your question… and comments make no sense.

Oregon is even MORE liberal than Washington and they don’t even have sales tax.

But thanks for the rant!

Thank Obama for the reason tax break, Mr. Uptight Conservative (even your avatar is uptight LOL!!!!!!). He’s done more for the people in a month than Bush did in eight years. GO OBAMA and so glad crusty, crabby, conservative McCain didn’t end up elected.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At this other question of yours “If I told you I drive a Lexus luxury sedan as my first car and I’m 23, would you think I’m rich?” My answer would be “No, I’d assume your somebody FAR too concerned with what others think of you and that you have a gherkin in your pants and hope women will see past that if you’re driving a nice car.”

Whoops a week ago you were only 18!
“In case anyone is wondering: I’m 18, I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, I’ve been on Lovan fluoxetine hydrochloride for about 3 years. I’m going off it soon though because of the side-effects. I get painful itching from time to time, my neck and hands tremour when I’m anxious (around others) and I get wild mood swings. When I’m talking to other people I can’t focus on what they’re saying because I’m so busy trying not to let my head shake from anxiety, which makes me turn my head quickly to try and cover it and look away frequently. So it’s hard to make friends because of this. And I can forget about ever being with a woman. I’m hoping this will go away when I get off the medication – but then the OCD symptoms may come back which makes me incapable of functioning normally (like someone says something to me at college and I would go home and analyse it for 2 hours, for example)”

Deregulation Now

A New Year’s resolution for failing state governments.

Grover Discusses Proposed CA Flat Tax

In order to lose weight you have to eat less calories than you burn off. Sounds simple enough. So how do you do it? First step is to figure out how many calories your burning each day, this is usually described as your Resting metabolic Rate or RMR for short. Your RMR is the total calories your body will burn today if you don’t do any extra exercise or move much at all. If you browse the web you’ll find lots of metabolism calculators online. They typically require you to enter your height and weight, and many of them also require various measurements like wrist, waist or forearms as well. These calculators are decent and can give you a rough idea of your resting metabolism, however each one has a built in error, so you can never take the number you get as a fact written in stone. Even the best calculators online still only produce an ESTIMATE of your real metabolic rate. If you want to lose weight but don’t know how to start try this:

1) Go online and find at least 3 metabolic rate calculators and get your estimated metabolic rate from each one

2) Add all three numbers together and divide by 3 to get an average of the three results

3) Use this averaged number of calories as your starting point to test your real daily metabolic rate

4) For 1 week, eat exactly the amount of calories that is stated in step 3 above The number is correct if you stay the same weight by the end of the week.

If you lose weight by the end of the week then you know this number is too low. If you gain weight by the end of the week then you know this number is too high. If you gain or lost weight, try the experiment again for another week and adjust the calories accordingly. Your average number shouldn’t be too far off so only adjust by about 200 calories per day. Keep adjusting in 200 calorie increments until you find the amount of daily calories that keeps your weight the same for a week. You should be able to find your daily metabolic rate within a month using this system. And this won’t be a theoretical number that some calculator told you, this will be the real life number you find by testing your own body. Once you know this number you will also know that you need to eat some amount below this number to lose weight. This is the simplest and most effective way to find out how many calories you need in a day.

Smart way to cash out IRA

Since you turned age 59½ you could have taken all the money out of your IRA without paying a penalty.

Question: Canadian Income tax return help..?

Anyone out there know of a website where I could get an estimate of how much money I will get back from my income tax return providing information from my T4 slip I got from work? I just want an estimate of how much I’ll get back.

Answer: Go to http://www.ey.com/GLOBAL/content.nsf/Canada/Tax_-_Calculators_-_2006_Personal_Tax and punch in your Gross income. It will tell you how much tax you should have paid. The difference is either a refund or a value owing.

If you have RRSP deductions, etc., this way doesn’t work.

Hope this helps.

Kayne Anderson MLP Investment Company Provides Unaudited Balance Sheet Information and Announces its Net Asset Value …

HOUSTON—-Kayne Anderson MLP Investment Company today provided a summary unaudited balance sheet and announced its net asset value and asset coverage ratios under the Investment Company Act of 1940 as of December 31, 2009.

Income Tax Truth Tom Cryer 1/3

Question: I did not file taxes for 2001 and 2002. I owe taxes for stock sold. Should I consult a tax professional?

I sold some stock in 2001 and 2002 and I failed to file my taxes. I have received my tax refunds for the years filed aftwerwards. I sold some short term gain stock those years, and I had very few possible deductions at that time. It is looking like I owe quite a bit of $$ for interest and penalties. I am capable of filling out the standard forms, but not calculating the interest/penalties. Should I consult a tax professional? Will a professional be able to do anything that may help reduce my amount owed. I don’t want to make this more costly than it already is.

Answer: Yes. And do it right now. I didn’t pay taxes for a couple of years because I didn’t have the money. A couple of years passed and then they sent me a bill for that and penalties. It was in the thousands. I talked to a tax person and they saved me about 30% of what I owed. It was definitely worth it.

At first I felt a little guilty and embarrassed, but better that than going to jail for tax evasion.

IRS promises greater scrutiny of paid tax preparers

Most of us don’t do our own tax returns.

Tax Deduction Tips & Advice : How to Keep Vehicle Mileage Tax Records