Child Care Credit for Summer
The IRS wants parents to know that school may be out in June, but the child care credit is a year-round benefit, according to a Special Edition Tax Tip. Below is a summary of the key provisions; more information is available in the tip itself and in its additional resources list.
- You must pay for care so you and your spouse can work or actively look for work. Being a fulltime student is considered "working" under this definition.
Ambulances Get a Fuel Rescue
Emergency service units get a break in New York, thanks to a revised law. Starting June 1, voluntary ambulance services, volunteer fire companies, volunteer fire departments, and volunteer rescue squads will be able to claim a reimbursement of the petroleum business tax. This is in addition to the already existing reimbursements of the excise tax and the state and local sales tax for fuel used in these emergency vehicles.
Do-It-Yourself E-Filing
E-filing continues to grow in popularity, according to a release from the IRS. So far in 2013, more than 43 million people have self-prepared and e-filed their tax returns from home—an increase of more than 4 percent over last year. Tax professional e-filing increased by a smaller amount: 0.1 percent. Total e-filing was up 1.7 percent.
New York Employment Is Up
The New York state economy added 23,800 private sector jobs in April 2013, according to a New York State Labor Department release. The state has now reached an all-time high private sector job count of 7,452,100 as of April 2013. The release also noted that between March and April 2013, the state's unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent, its lowest level since March 2009.
Cure for the Summertime (Tax) Blues
In the old Eddie Cochran rockabilly song, Summertime Blues, a teenager sings about how much he hates having to work during summer vacation. The IRS is showing a little sympathy, with some advice in a recent Tax Tip that makes summertime employment taxes easier to understand and manage for newbie employees. CPAs whose clients have teenagers should feel free to share the guidance.
State Pension Fund Hits All-Time High
The New York state pension fund earned an estimated 10.38 percent rate of return on its investments for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013, according to a release from the state comptroller's office. This drove the fund to a record height of $160.4 billion.
Someone Had to Leave the IRS
Scandals in Washington are nothing new, and the need to have someone to blame isn't new either. But just who is going to take the heat for the accusations that the IRS gave inappropriately intense scrutiny to conservative groups? You can't fire the commissioner, because the IRS hasn't had an appointed commissioner since Doug Shulman resigned last November. No problem: you can always ask the acting commissioner to leave.
Colleges Flunk IRS Compliance
After an exhaustive investigation into college and universities' compliance with regulations governing nonprofit entities, the IRS has released its final report, showing that many institutions of higher learning had done things such as reporting certain losses as connected to unrelated business activities when they were not, making errors in net operating loss calculations, and in apprpriately misclassifying certain activities as exempt or otherwise non reportable on the Form 990.
Wikipedia May Be Linked to Stock Price
A study in Scientific Reports has shown that sudden spikes in Wikipedia search volume on a particular company correlates with drops in that company's stock value, according to Wired.
State E-filing Hits All-Time High
More than 7.9 million taxpayers e-filed their New York state personal income tax returns by the deadline this year, a 200,000 increase over last year and a record high, according to a tax department release. By the end of April, 87 percent of taxpayers had e-filed their personal returns.