A bedrock of IRS administrative practice has been the voluntary disclosure. Where an individual or business has not filed tax returns or believes they may have criminal tax exposure for prior actions, IRS procedures have long-sanctioned a form of "criminal tax amnesty" if the taxpayer voluntarily comes forward before being contacted by the IRS, discloses his tax misdeeds, fully cooperates to correct the back tax issues, and then becomes compliant going forward. In exchange for this "voluntary disclosure," while criminal tax prosecution may not be recommended, the taxpayer will ...
Aside from corporate tax reductions, one of the most important aspects of the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act beginning this year is the new 20% deduction for "pass-through" businesses - i.e. businesses that are not corporations. With the corporate tax rate being reduced to a flat 21%, the 20% deduction for other forms of businesses was designed to give a reduction to these businesses approximating the lower corporate tax rate. However, this 20% deduction, found in new Internal Revenue Code § 199A, is saddled with exclusions, phase-outs, technical issues, and uncertainties so that many ...
Individuals who are the unfortunate subjects of federal criminal tax prosecution face prison terms, probation, fines, restrictions on travel and other punishment. Conviction of felony tax offenses results in certain Constitution rights being lost, such as the right to vote and bear arms.
As part of a conviction for federal criminal tax offenses, an individual will most likely also be sentenced to pay "restitution" to the federal government. Payment of restitution in a criminal tax case is designed to compensate the IRS for the loss caused by the defendant's wrongdoing.
In federal ...
A health wellness program is broadly defined as any program of health promotion or disease prevention. My recent article entitled "Taxonomy of Health Wellness Programs - Part I" reviewed the classification of health wellness programs (hereinafter referred to as "Wellness Programs") under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ("HIPAA"). In this article, I am going to review an alternative way of classifying Wellness Programs that is contained in the "2018 Employer Guide: FINDING FIT: IMPLEMENTING WELLNESS PROGRAMS SUCCESSFULLY" (the "Guide").
In February ...