Friday, February 6, 2015

Congress cut IRS auditor unit--RELAX

Congress cut IRS auditor unit—RELAX
If you made less than $200,000, your chance of being audited was just 0.88 percent. That's down from the 0.94 percent audit rate in fiscal year 2012.
Your audit odds increased if your income was between $200,000 and $1 million. In fiscal year 2013, just 3.26 percent of returns filed by individuals in that income range were audited. And if you made more than $1 million, almost 11 percent of returns got closer looks from IRS auditors. 14 ways to avoid an IRS audit.

Avoid the tax prep scam and their “mistakes”
Last year, when Congress sent "secret shoppers" to tax prep firms, only 11% got them right. Mistakes ranged from giving taxpayers $52 less to $3,718 more than they were entitled to. Part of the problem say Internal Revenue Service is that almost anything goes in the tax prep industry. Most prepares earn under $10 with 10 hours training. Check credentials. Get Tax Refund in 2-3 weeks! File taxes for free using easy online efile screens. E-file, when combined with direct deposit, is the fastest way to get a refund. It costs nothing for those who choose Free File. State fees are $12.95 +. Some states allow FREE state filings for simple returns.

Pope says it’s ok to smack your children...as long as dignity maintained.


GOP crazies
Romney gives up before he starts.
Christie (“Sit down and shut up”) in England says you don’t need to vaccinate your kids even though it is good enough for his kids. California is experiencing the worst of the epidemic after visitors and workers at Disneyland contracted the virus from a non-vaccinated person. Kids in 14 states are now infected because of some anti-vaccine anti-science anti-gov guru. 


Supremes say our union contracts may be violated—reversing contract law
On Jan. 26, the Supreme Court decided that health care benefits provided through a collective-bargaining agreement vest once an employee retires and continue through that individual's lifetime can be terminated. It is ironic that the only black judge Clarence Thomas wrote the decision. “When a contract is silent as to the duration of retiree benefits, a court may not infer that the parties intended those benefits to vest for life,” wrote Mr. Thomas in his opinion. Historically, contracts without a specific end time are presumed to continue.


                                                                        Julian Edelman, NE Patriots

Wealthy man tells poor to buy fewer things, live simply—flies 2 nannies in private jet!!
America’s lifestyle expectations are far too high and need to be adjusted so we have less things and a smaller, better existence,” Billionaire Greene said in an interview today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Greene, who flew his wife, children and two nannies on a private jet plane to Davos for the week, said he’s planning a conference in Palm Beach, Florida. Do as I say not as I do.
Pay No Taxes in Retirement: Learn how to avoid taxes legally like the wealthy do. http://www.amazon.com/Pay-No-Taxes-Retirement-legally/dp/1507527977

Your Roth IRA conversion is now tax and penalty FREE
When it comes to Roth IRAs, qualified distributions, which are 100% tax- and penalty-free, are the name of the game. Once you have held it for 5 years and are over 59.5 years old, all distributions from any of your Roth IRAs will be tax- and penalty-free for the rest of your life. Beneficiaries of such Roth IRAs can also take tax- and penalty-free distributions of inherited amounts.

How are your target-date life mutual funds doing?
Ratings are for 5 years so it is hard to judge how well you will do in the future:
You can use create your own Tax-FREE pension with one account: http://www.amazon.com/Create-Your-Tax-FREE-Financial-System/dp/1466367466

Did your advisor beat a low-cost index fund?
DALBAR's annual Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior (QAIB) shows most advisor accounts earned 5.02% over the last 20 years while just letting your money sit in a market index account earned 9.22%. Your investment doubles every 7 years versus every 15 years. Vanguard’s Top Ten earn 10-12% over time. Double it every 6 years--

Which is best investment long-term?
Real estate, gold, stocks, bank savings? Most people think it is real estate since many own their own home. However, consider Gates, Buffett, Slim, Ortega. You have to go to number 22 in the world’s wealthy list to find real estate.

Global warming in the future means MORE snow
study of 20th century snowstorms published in the August 2006 issue of the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, before the big storms of recent years, found that most major snowstorms in the United States occurred during warmer-than-normal years.

SCAMS           Why are we still paying $700 Billion a year for WWII deployments? That is 27 cents of each dollar in taxes—the largest part of our money—and we aren’t even at war. We could pay off our debts and fix our schools, roads and bridges!
We are paying for 164,253 of our active-duty armed personnel to be in 150 countries around the world. We have about 50,000 in Japan and 50,000 in Germany.
Are we preparing for WWII again? There are 1,208,083[1] armed personnel in the United States. Our taxes pay for about HALF of the WORLD’s military expenditures every year. We have wasted $398.6 billion so far on the F-35 program—they can’t fly safely.
We just can’t afford to pay for everyone else’s defenses anymore.
Japan, Germany and S. Korea can pay for their own defenses.
The War on Terror requires SEALS’ attacks on top terrorists at their homes. Iraq proved converting a nation to Western-style republic doesn’t work. Our trained troops ran away.

After Surgery, Surprise $117,000 Medical Bill From Doctor He Didn’t Know
Out of Network doctor assistants at last minute pile on charges without reason. In operating rooms and on hospital wards across the country, physicians and other health providers typically help one another in patient care. But in an increasingly common practice that some medical experts call drive-by doctoring, assistants, consultants and other hospital employees are charging patients or their insurers hefty fees.


NJ property tax hits new highs—Christie promise broken—takes expensive trips
New Jersey’s average residential property-tax bill rose 2.2 percent last year to an all-time high of $8,161, slightly exceeding Governor Chris Christie’s 2 percent cap on growth in the levies, according to state data. The average homeowner paid $173 more than in 2013. The state’s real-estate taxes are the nation’s highest, and their unpopularity helped Christie oust Democrat Jon Corzine in 2009. Tax relief checks to seniors haven’t been sent out again. This is the third time in Christie’s five years as governor that he has delayed the rebate. Property taxes have increased 75 percent since 2001.

Have a tax problem—work for the IRS
Auditors found the Internal Revenue Service between 2010 and 2013 gave jobs to 323 former employees who had displayed unsavory conduct during prior stints at the agency, according to the U.S. Treasury's Inspector General for Tax Administration on Thursday.
The audit looked at roughly 7,000 workers rehired in the period to fill mostly temporary positions. Among the 323, five of the rehired workers had "serious misconduct" issues, a category that includes threats and sexual harassment. Another five had willfully failed to file federal tax returns.

Anthem health WARNING
Dwayne Melancon, chief technology officer at information security products vendor Tripwire, warns individuals affected by the Anthem health information breach to be wary of emails or calls they receive.

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