Insights
Jim Malone Discusses Employment Taxes and International Tax Issues with Tax Notes
In the February 1, 2016 article for Tax Notes, "What to Look for in Enforcement," James R. Malone, Jr. discussed the IRS' current tax enforcement priorities - including employment taxes and undisclosed foreign bank accounts.
Commenting on employment taxes, Mr. Malone noted:
"In order to uncover cases to refer for prosecution as well as help taxpayers come into compliance voluntarily, the government has said it will focus on identifying [employment tax] problems early. By 2017 the IRS should be able to notify taxpayers within 48 hours that a deposit has been missed. That’s a good thing, because from the civil side we saw two main fact patterns — businesses with cash flow problems and businesses where there was an employee who shouldn’t have been trusted [to handle the tax deposits], but the business owner was unaware of the problem. The alerts for unremitted taxes in the planned ‘‘soft notice’’ program will help reduce the problems caused by dishonest employees by preventing the unremitted amounts and accompanying penalties from increasing over time, resulting in crippling financial burdens to the business owner."
