Results tagged “irs”

The Department of Justice released Bernard Madoff's mugshot yesterday, and the Post notes, "that sickening smirk has been wiped off" his face. The disgraced financier remains in isolation at the Metropolitan Correctional Center while his lawyers prepare to argue why he should be released, in spite of his guilty plea with the mutlibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. In the meantime, the IRS says Madoff's victims, as well as victims of another fraudulent investor, R. Allen Stanford, can claim losses as deductions on their tax returns. IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said, "The IRS is today issuing guidance articulating the tax rules that apply and providing ‘safe harbor’ procedures for taxpayers who sustained losses in certain investment arrangements discovered to be criminally fraudulent."

With tax day two months away, elected officials making sure to remind people about the Earned Income Tax Credit. City Councilman Eric Gioia took to the airwaves to say, "I want New Yorkers to know if you made under $43,000 last year and you have kids, you could qualify for thousands of dollars back... The average recipient receives $2,600 and you could qualify for over $6,000." About 250,000 New Yorkers qualify, and here's IRS info to see if you qualify—apparently childless workers can be eligible, too. During his weekly address, Mayor Bloomberg said that there are a number of tax assistance sites (some are free, some cost $20) set up to help people file their taxes— here are the locations— and promoted the $aveNYC accounts, where you can get free tax help and put your refund into a savings account.

Today the rabble-rousing Post is reveling in allegations that the IRS is investigating the Yale Club for violating a requirement that 70% of its guest rooms be reserved for members in order to maintain tax-exempt status. While the IRS won't verify the claim, one pissy club member has blabbed about the brewing brouhaha. "In recent years, the club has become more like a hotel than the private club it is chartered to be," the unidentified member complains, airing a grievance about difficulties getting a room reserved at the special alumni rate of $215 a night (as opposed to $325 for nonmembers). And another disgruntled member, one Mrs. Harrison DeSilver, declares that the club has been just plain "crappy. I just want to put my feet up here, but instead, weddings are being shipped down from The Bronx." While that does sound simply abhorrent, Mrs. DeSilver might also want to steer clear of the club Wednesday night, when L.G.B.T. photographer Catherine Opie is scheduled to be feted.

The two-blocks long line around Federal Plaza, with about 800 job seekers on it, was for that venerable institution, the Internal Revenue Service. The NY Times noticed quite a few "laid-off Wall Street types in charcoal-gray pinstripe suits and trenchcoats" as well as a "woman with a new accounting degree on her resume and a 14-month old baby in a stroller." One applicant, laid off from Lehman Brothers without a severance, said, "You could get a lucrative job in the financial market right now, but how long can you keep it? Everywhere I look, I see layoffs. If I take a $10,000 or $20,000 pay cut, in the long run, I’m ahead. The government is not in the trading business. It will be around.” But the competition for IRS positions is tight: Another told the Post, "You talk with recruiters, and they get anywhere between 200 and 500 résumés for one job."

A state judge has ruled that a 77-year-old Bay Ridge tax lawyer must pay back taxes after wrongfully deducting more than $300,000 for prostitutes, porn, sex toys and erotic massages. After the verdict, the defendant William Halby told the Post, "I live a solitary life. I have no social life. I needed that release." So he dutifully documented each liaison in a notebook titled "Tax Journal," in case he ever got audited. Turns out that in 2002 alone, Halby deducted $111,364 for "therapeutic sex" and massages "to relieve osteoarthritis and enhance erectile function through frequent orgasm." He argued that the write-offs were necessary medical expenses. But because "significant portions" of his sex therapy was, you know, illegal, they can't be written off. The state auditor also argued that "in addition to being illegal in New York State, these expenses are not substantiated with receipts."

It's the day after Representative Charles Rangel's press conference discussing his tax issues related to not reporting 20 years of rental income (totaling around $75,000) to the IRS, and the big headline is that no one seems to quite buy one of his excuses. From the NY Times:

At a Capitol Hill news conference, during which he was by turns remorseful and combative, the congressman said that he had not been aware of the income and unpaid taxes in part because he had trouble getting detailed financial statements from the resort’s managers in the Dominican Republic.

Continue reading "No Spanish Disposition: Rangel's Language Barrier Claim"

While many people are wondering when they are getting their stimulus check, some are finding out they have accidentally received other people's checks! Newsday reports checks being sent to taxpayers who paid via electronic payment have been direct deposited to the wrong accounts.

Now that the glory days of moving to Brooklyn after being priced out of Manhattan are all but gone, the question remains: where do Manhattanites move?

April 15 is finally here and if you haven't filed your tax returns (or for an extension), you better hustle. The James Farley Post Office at 421 Eighth Avenue and 31st Street, just west of Madison Square Garden, is where the procrastinators tend to congregate, because it is the city's only 24-hour postal facility.