Tax Forms

In the case United States v. Sullivan, 274 U.S. 259 in 1927, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a taxpayer could not invoke the Fifth Amendment's protections as the basis for refusing to file a required federal income tax return.

In the case Garner v. United States, 424 U.S. 648 in 1976, a taxpayer tried unsuccessfully to keep the prosecutor from introducing his tax returns as evidence, arguing that since he was legally required to report illegal income on the returns, he was being compelled to be a witness against himself. The Supreme Court ruled that he was legally required to report his illegal income on the returns, but ruled that the privilege against self-incrimination still did not apply. The ruling in this case, combined with Sullivan suggests that a person is required to report their income but not required to report its source if it would incriminate them of some crime. They could probably label such income as something like "Fifth Amendment" (instead of "prostitution," "drug sales," "blackmail", "illegal gambling," etc.).

Yes.

Do you think the IRS should just presume that everybody who doesn't file doesn't owe any taxes?

26USC6012 requires anyone having more than a certain amount of income to file a tax return. 26USC7203 makes willful failure to file a return a crime punishable by up to a year in jail and/or a $25,000 fine. Neither of these laws carry any requirement that you owe money. It is extremely rare, but people have been successfully criminally prosecuted for failure to file even though they might owe no money. See Spies v. United States, 317 U.S. 492, 496 (1943); United States v. Wade, 585 F.2d 573, 574 (5th Cir. 1978).

Is the typical guy whose only source of income is a W-2 on which he had way too much tax withheld going to get prosecuted? No. Maybe if he gets arrested for something else like drugs, a tax charge might be piled onto his case. Or if he sends threatening letters to the IRS commissioner, they might take revenge. But not typically.

People who have never had any income other than a W-2 forget one fact: The IRS does not know whether you owe any money until you file your taxes. A lot of people have income from other sources that does not get reported on a W-2. They owe income tax on that, too. And the IRS does not know that you have dependents or have deductions or whatever unless you file a tax return. They need that statement, sworn under penalty of perjury, of your income, deductions, exemptions, credits, and so on to properly calculate whether you owe taxes. If you don't send it to them, they will make certain worst-case assumptions about you and could even pursue you for taxes you don't owe.

And if you don't file, the statute of limitations never starts running. That mean that the IRS can hound you over whether you owed taxes forever.

There are also certain elections that need to be made on or before the filing date. Failure to make these elections in a timely manner means you forfeit the opportunity. For example, you can take a return of your current year IRA contribution or recharacterize a contribution up until October 15 of the next year, but only if you file your return (or an extension) on time, even if you don't owe money.

Now many people will point to the fact that the civil penalty (as opposed to the rare criminal penalty) for filing late is based on the amount of money you owe. If you don't owe any money, the penalty is $0. (Note: some states impose penalties that may not be based on the amount you owe.) They then extrapolate that to mean you are not required to file and nothing will happen if you don't. These people do not know the big picture.

And I don't know how many times I've seen people say "I always get a refund" but this year they don't. And they don't realize it because they haven't filled out their taxes. Or they make a mistake on their taxes and the IRS catches them. They end up paying thousands of dollars in needless failure to file penalties because they didn't file on time.

Income is any type of property, money, etc that a taxpayer receives during the year from all worldwide sources of income.

Go to the IRS gov website and use the search box for Publication 525 (2009), Taxable and Nontaxable Income

Table of Contents

• Employee Compensation
  • Babysitting.
  • Miscellaneous Compensation
  • Fringe Benefits
  • Retirement Plan Contributions
  • Stock Options
  • Restricted Property
• Special Rules for Certain Employees
  • Clergy
  • Members of Religious Orders
  • Foreign Employer
  • Military
  • Volunteers
• Business and Investment Income
  • Rents From Personal Property
  • Royalties
  • Partnership Income
  • S Corporation Income
• Sickness and Injury Benefits
  • Disability Pensions
  • Long-Term Care Insurance Contracts
  • Workers' Compensation
  • Other Sickness and Injury Benefits
• Miscellaneous Income
  • Bartering
  • Canceled Debts
  • Host or Hostess
  • Life Insurance Proceeds
  • Recoveries
  • Survivor Benefits
  • Unemployment Benefits
  • Welfare and Other Public Assistance Benefits
  • Other Income
• Repayments
  • Method 1.
  • Method 2.

Form 941 is Employer's Quarterly Federal Tax Return. If you're in Wisconsin and you're not including a payment with Form 941, you mail to the Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Cincinnati OH 45999-0005.

For more information, go to www.irs.gov/taxtopics for Topic 758 (Form 941 - Employer's Quarterly Federal Tax Return and Form 944 - Employer's Annual Federal Tax Return).

Schedule B, titled Interest and Ordinary Dividends, is filed with Form 1040 or Form 1040A for seven reasons.

One, it's used to report over $1,500 of taxable interest or ordinary dividends.

Two, it's used to exclude interest from U.S. savings bond series EE or I issued after 1989.

Three, it's used to report foreign accounts or trusts.

Four, it's used to report interest from a seller-financed mortgage on a property used by the buyer as a personal residence.

Five, it's used to report original issue discount [OID] in an amount less than that shown on Form 1099-OID.

Six, it's used to report accrued interest from a bond.

Seven, it's used to reduce a bond's interest income by the amount of amortizable bond premium.

Form 990-PF is Return of Private Foundation or Section 4947(a)(1) Nonexempt Charitable Trust Treated as a Private Foundation. According to General Instruction G in the Instructions for Form 990-PF, a copy must be sent to the Attorney General of each state to which the foundation reports or to which it's registered.

The mailing address for the Attorney General is Office of Attorney General, Wisconsin Department of Justice, P.O. Box 7857, Madison WI 53707-7857. Their phone number is (608) 266-1221.

Yes, according to Summary of Budget Bill Personal Income Tax Changes Enacted in 2009. Interest paid on a loan made under the New York Higher Education Loan Program will be allowed as a subtraction in computing your New York adjusted gross income (AGI). Eligible interest is interest paid on or after July 1, 2009.

To view the Summary for other changes, type TSB-M-09(11)I Summary on the Google Search screen.

• The amount of compensation for injuries such as a scar are completely within of the jury hearing the case (or the judge in a nonjury trial). I can depend on many factors, such as the size and location of the scar. As an example, the scar on the face of aHollywood actor might be worth a lot more than the scar on the hand of a construction worker.
• In the UK there are many different variables which determine how much compensation you should receive which include: where the scar is located on you body (visible scars attract more compensation), your sex (women receive more for scarring than men), your age (the younger you are the more you receive) and most importantly the size and severity of the scar. The types of scar that attract the most amount of compensation are those on the face. See the related links for examples of amounts of facial scarring compensation.