Tax Cautions Delivered By The Internal Revenue Service Concerning Fraudulent Tax Returns

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Advises: Scammers might attempt to lure you in the church seat.

“A few con artists are within churches and additional areas, globally, attempting to lure individuals into sending them details by sending out fake tax return 2011 forms that say people have cash coming to them,” the IRS cautions.

“Folks are made to believe that they ought to file 2011 tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service to receive monies from tax credits, rebates and/or federal tax refunds, funds the recipients of these fake forms are not eligible to receive, stated the spokesperson for the Internal Revenue Service,” Mr. Michael Dobzinksi.

“This fraud continues to occur although the deadlines to file a tax return ended in April, months ago,” stated Michael Dobzinksi. “The IRS has placed fliers on church bulletin boards,” says Mr. Dobzinksi.

“In a few instances, individuals are asked to pay a fee – with the scammers disappearing with the payment,” Michael Dobzinksi continued. At times, the con artists attempt to deceive the government, also referred to as “uncle Sam” by requesting funds back from the fake tax returns that were filed: The late-filed 2011 tax return account funds held back really were not withheld,” Mr. Dobzinksi stated.

“It is happening globally, which includes areas such as FL (Florida), with several instances developing in the middle section of the state,” the IRS representative alleged.

Michael Dobzinksi delivered the long-standing caution: “If it seems too good to be real, perhaps it is.”

“A deal that appears too good to be real includes proposals for free cash ‘devoid of needing to provide adequate papers,’” Mr. Dobzinksi stated.

Michael Dobzinksi continues, saying, “These frauds have been showing up in municipal churches nationwide.” “Scammers are steering towards church worshippers, manipulating their good purposes and trustworthiness. These frauds are frequently delivered by way of “word of mouth” amid innocent and goodhearted individuals; tell their acquaintances and family members.

Mr. Dobzinksi stated that he did not know of any church names the scammers are targeting at this time.

If anybody has questions concerning these tax credits for 2011 tax, they ought to go to the Internal Revenue’s actual web site, located at https://www.irs.gov/, or they need to contact the IRS by telephone, at their 1-800 #, toll-free, 1-800-829-1040. People can go to their local Internal Revenue office as well and speak with a taxpayer assistant if taxpayers have any questions regarding tax return 2011 and the fake returns saying they are eligible for refunds, rebates or cash back.

Do Your Own Taxes To Affect Tremendous Personal Economic Recovery

Anatomy of a Debt Reduction Deal:  Five Money Moves to Make Right Now

What’s next? If you have found yourself deeply confused about how a recent debt reduction deal will likely affect your wallet, you have plenty of company.

The small writing displayed upon the contract form often induces more questions than answers. Nearly all discretionary expenditures of the US Government are slated for drastic reduction during the next decade or so. Defense costs are an especially burdensome budgetary item that is overdue to be slashed dramatically. The legislative proposal currently pending before Congress would free up an estimated total of $917,000,000,000 USD in fiscal resources from federal coffers during the first ten years after its enactment. Approximately $350,000,000,000 of that figure falls within defense and national security budgetary categories.

A fact of perhaps even more import is the recent proposal drafted by a dozen-member Congressional committee that would entail identifying areas in which to affect an additional $1.5 trillion in budget cuts. That faction’s fiscal agenda is currently an open slate that portends to entail slicing Social Security funding and increased 2011 taxes. If the committee cannot specify a minimum of $1.2 trillion in total budgetary savings or its recommendations fail to garner sufficient Congressional approval, automatic cuts become effective as of December 23, 2011.  This belt-tightening campaign looks to be pervasive and severe. Vital programs like the Armed Forces and Medicare would be affected in a major way, while Medicaid, Social Security, and a few other Federal programs might be spared.

It appears as though all problems have been aptly identified but remain unresolved. This does not mean, however, that individual savings and investment plans should be left by the wayside. Consumers must continue to implement protective measures to shield themselves from the federal government’s impending fiscal fallout. Following are some specific steps to take or immediately preclude right now:

–  Employ defensive investment strategies for all private government contractors’ corporate stocks. American Assoc. of Individual Investors spokesman Charlie Rotblut recently advised stock investors whose holdings depend highly upon federal funding must maintain them most vigilantly. Private defense firms will probably lose revenue due to the trickle down effects of these budget cuts. This phenomenon will have universal impact across the board, however. State contracts will also lose out as recession-ravished state economies deteriorate further from diminished federal fund inflows.

Rotblut further observed that national infrastructure is especially vulnerable, due to it being much more difficult for states to complete the construction of roadways, bridges, and highways.

He went on to advise individual investors to thoroughly peruse 10k annual reports of various corporations to glean their true level of relative governmental project dependency.

  • Do not be too uptight about bonds. Bonds are no longer as risky as they have historically been. This was the recent observation by Mayflower Capital spokesman Don Martin. Of course, conventional wisdom remains valid about long-term bond values being likely to decrease as interest rates take a hike. The debt deal under consideration is likely to delay the day of ultimate reckoning for several reasons, however. As Congress is honoring its foreign obligations, it reduces the probability that ratings will go down, thereby inches T-Bill rates upward. The pending bill’s proposed budgetary cuts will not take effect until at least 2013. Their specific terms, however, hold out what many commentators believe to be the nation’s brightest rays of hope for future fiscal horizons.

Mr. Martin went on to posit that the current US economic posture is stagnant and threatens to slip into recessionary status on a daily basis. Thus, lowered government stimuli due to American leader’s austere attitudes will mean dramatic falls in bond values and other discrete, short-term investments. While this calls for a cautious approach, it is hardly an occasion for endemic panic.

Taxes And Their Effect On Big Oil

The oil industry has wanted to increase domestic production for some time, and the most recent quarter shows that they have done so.  The American Petroleum Institute president, Jack Gerard, has said that increasing drilling in the United States, as opposed to increasing taxes above their 2011 taxes levels, will create more income for the country as a whole.

The Bedford Report did thorough research on the topic, covering multiple companies in the Oil and Gas industry, particularly one the biggest players in the industries, and has produced their full report on the companies on their website.

Profits have been good for the oil companies leading many, including President Barack Obama, to say that the tax subsidies the companies enjoy should come to an end.  But reports are also saying that new sources of oil across the world are needed to fulfill demand.  This leads those oil companies to the United States for new oil sources.

The largest of the companies, BP and Exxon, have reported lower rates of oil production from outside the United States.  Part of this was due to manufacturing issues, though some of it was that foreign countries are increasing their own taxes, forcing the companies to extract less oil to stay highly profitable.

The Bedford Report produces quality, independent reports on the energy industries as a whole, and helps their investors make solid decisions on their investments and therefore is a trusted resource.  Any publicity that their reports create are not compensated by the mentioned companies.  Their sole compensation is through advertising through third party companies, and act as an independent source for quality research to help influence decision making.

Top 5 Online Tax Scams

Yes, you don’t want to think of your taxes for 2011 until Tax Day comes along, but you should be wary.  Online scammers are planning already how to steal your identity and tax refund. The 2011 tax season’s scams include new tax credits going for donations to Japan for disaster relief, Websites that are search engine optimized and are filled with malware, dangerous e-mail, and Facebook “likejacking” techniques.

Around 19 million filed their taxes at their house for 2011 taxes.  This is a six percent increase from 2010, according to a report by the IRS.  During this time of year, tax-related online scams abound.  Tax scammers are aware that taxpayers are putting in their personal information online, as well as storing confidential financial documents on the hard drive of the computer.  They are also accessing sites to look for information on tax laws and deductions.

A representative for the security firm Sophos, Jennifer Torode, states that most people procrastinate and file their tax forms at the last minute.  Scammers take advantage of the frantic behavior of these latecomers, and lure their into their deceitful webs.

There are five top scams for this season-make sure to avoid them. First, the Japan Quake scam mimics an actual law from last year to set up a means for taxpayers to donate to the Haiti Fund. Gone Phishing (a bogus IRS website that looks as though it’s a tax preparation service, but is really meant to trick someone into downloading malware) is another one that trips people up. Black Hat SEO (Search Engine Optimization), is a way by which the criminal uses sites such as Google Trends to determine popular search keywords for people researching taxes, to optimize their chances of luring someone in. Likejacking on Facebook, or hiding a button over a like button directs to a link advertising a tax service, but it is actually a scam. Last, but not least, phony e-mail is used in the form of a fake message from the IRS to download a form and then give your social security number.

All of these scams have been successful on occasion, but as long as the public is made aware of them, there is less likely to be a chance that as many people will be tricked into giving personal information or allowing someone to get their documents from their hard drive.

Republicans Or Taxes: Which One Will Budge?

Will Republicans ever give us some breathing room on 2011 taxes?

The White House is desperately trying to persuade liberals that the debt ceiling deal is getting a horrible reputation under false pretenses.  This is quite understandable because there are always two sides to a coin, so to speak.  As a matter of fact, upon closer inspection of this deal, there may be some favorable attributes associated with it.

In general, there is a commission of twelve “Super Congress” members – a total of 3 from each respective chamber and party.  The liberals are addicted to criticizing their purpose to seal the $1.5 trillion second phase of cuts by Thanksgiving, which was bound to force some mandatory increases of revenue.  Even though the Bush tax cuts are now out of the picture, a bounty of corporate welfare programs, subsidies and other loopholes are currently available.  It’s definitely not easy to imagine a minimum of one Republican voting to keep corporate jet funding and then slash $500 billion from our country’s defense budget, despite the lack of offset revenues.  It all comes down to this question:  Are the Republicans more fearful of the joint chiefs or Grover Norquist?  If the Democrats were betting, then their money would be on the joint chiefs.

Let’s assume the debt ceiling deal is approved today:  in that case, the joint House/Senate committee has to recommend a brand new set of deficit reduction steps, which will provide the perfect venue for Democrats to seek after a more “balanced” approach.  This translates into revenue increases and spending cuts.  Because of the deal’s structure, if Congress refuses to accept its blueprint or the committee deadlocks, then automatic cuts will be triggered across the board – including a Defense spending reduction.  This will probably force the Pentagon-friendly Republicans to take demands for revenue adjustments from the Democrats a bit more seriously.

However, I wouldn’t fall for this just yet.  As usual, the primary conflict concerns the Tea Party, with its stubborn anti-anything-having-remotely-to-do-with-tax-increases orthodoxy.  This notion is shared by countless Republican House members, animating the GOP’s base, including its most influential commentators.  Speaker John Boehner had these members in mind while backing out of the major bargain discussions with President Obama.  This just goes to show that even the slightest revenue increases amidst substantial spending and entitlement cuts would prove unacceptable to the GOP conference.  These also happened to be the most difficult (or in some cases impossible) ones to win over as he pedaled his own second debt ceiling proposal last week.

In general, it’s important to remember that as far as these Republicans are concerned, defense spending isn’t nearly as sacred to them as it has been to GOP leaders, historically.  Last month for example, Mark Meckler, national leader of the Tea Party Patriots, said to Politico:

“Everything is on the table.  I have yet to hear anyone say, ‘We can’t tackle defense spending,’ or any other topic.
…Any tea partier who says something else lacks honor.”

In the same article, Georgia Representative Paul Broun, possibly the most influential Tea Party advocate of Congress, suggested he wouldn’t be opposed to defense cuts, arguing that the USA “cannot be a protector of the whole world.  We cannot do that any longer.  We don’t have the money to do it anyway.”  Incidentally, Republican Broun declined to vote with Boehner and the GOP regarding last week’s debt ceiling.  Therefore, it seems that Broun wouldn’t object to avoiding any type of tax increase if the price involved a cut in Pentagon spending.

I’m still not sure how prevalent Broun’s view is among his GOP supporters.  However, if a significant number of Republicans swing this way, it would be difficult to imagine the revenues changing under the deficit reduction committee.  If pushing for the acceptance of a tax increase plan, Boehner would still be alienating dozens of believers that already have a suspicious eye on him.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that there aren’t Republicans who think that the Defense budget is a hefty matter.  Buck McKeon, California’s Armed Services Committee chairman, has been working all year to safeguard the military from any budget cuts.  But McKeon, who has been in the House for 2 decades, is not the one that Republican Boehner should be worried about:  it’s the Tea Party purists that require attention.

It’s also important to recall that another comparable commission was created under President Ronald Reagan during the Cold War with similar policies.  If Congress ignored it or the panel came to a deadlock, the Defense budget took a severe beating.  Yet, even back in those times when a strong national defense was most likely the focal point of settlement for all Republicans, both Reagan and the GOP decided to sign off on a more “balanced” plan, complete with Defense reductions.

If the Republicans gave in on Defense spending back then, it’s tough to imagine that they won’t do it again today, especially if the alternative is to pick a fight with the unwavering anti-tax Tea Party zealots.  Therefore, no matter what the White House says, I doubt that this new deficit reduction committee will accomplish what every other plan of action has failed to do thus far.  As far as increased revenues are concerned, the best bet lies towards the end of 2012, which marks the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.  Also, this depends upon whether or not the Democrats want to push a rate hike by doing nothing at all.