Archive for December 18, 2011

IRS Offers Tips for Year-End Giving

W-2 Printing, Professional tax preparation software

R-2011-118, Dec. 15, 2011

WASHINGTON — Individuals and businesses making contributions to charity should keep in mind several important tax law provisions that have taken effect in recent years. Some of these changes include the following:

Special Charitable Contributions for Certain IRA Owners

This provision, currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2011, offers older owners of individual retirement accounts (IRAs) a different way to give to charity. An IRA owner, age 70½ or over, can directly transfer tax-free up to $100,000 per year to an eligible charity. This option, created in 2006, is available for distributions from IRAs, regardless of whether the owners itemize their deductions. Distributions from employer-sponsored retirement plans, » Read more..

Filing Deadline Extended to March 30 for Some Tax-Exempt Organizations

IRS

R-2011-120, Dec. 16, 2011

WASHINGTON — Tax-exempt organizations with January and February filing due dates will have until March 30, 2012, to file their annual returns, the Internal Revenue Service announced today.

The IRS is granting this extension of time to file because the part of the e-file system that processes electronically filed returns of tax-exempt organizations will be off-line during January and February. The agency stressed that the rest of the e-file system will continue to operate normally and urged all individuals and businesses to choose the accuracy, speed and convenience of electronic filing.

In general, the extension applies to tax-exempt organizations whose normal filing deadline is either Jan. 17 or Feb. 15, 2012. Ordinarily, these deadlines would apply to organizations with a fiscal year that ended on Aug. 31 or Sept. 30, 2011, respectively. The extension also applies to organizations that already obtained an initial three-month filing extension and now have an extended filing deadline that falls on Jan. 17 or Feb. 15, 2012. The majority of tax-exempt organizations will be unaffected by this extension because they operate on a calendar-year basis and have a May 15 filing deadline.

The extension applies to affected organizations filing Forms 990990-EZ990-PF, or 1120-POL. Form 990-N filers will not be affected. No form needs to be filed to get the March 30 extension.

In order to avoid receiving a late filing penalty notice, a reasonable cause statement should be attached to the tax return. If organizations receive late-filing penalty notices, they should contact the IRS so that these penalties can be abated. The IRS encouraged these organizations to consider either e-filing early — before the end of December — or waiting until March to file electronically.

Further details are in Notice 2012-4, posted today on IRS.gov.

IRS Commissioner Speaks

Shulman

Prepared Remarks of Douglas H. Shulman, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Before the IRS/George Washington University 24th Annual Institute on Current Issues in International Taxation, Washington, DC, Dec. 15, 2011  

Good afternoon and it’s good to be at the IRS/GW Annual Institute on Current Issues in International Taxation which is now one of the preeminent venues to talk about international tax issues. This is a very important dialogue for all of us who want a healthy U.S. tax system.

Today, I would like to talk about a new sensible and strategic approach to international tax issues. It brings into tight focus efficiency, effectiveness, working smarter and a real-time resolution of issues – which I am working to integrate and apply throughout the IRS’ operations – not just for international tax issues. » Read more..