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September 12, 2022

Rumors About the IRS

acceleratorsupport News, Tax

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The IRS has been in the news recently, and there are several rumors floating around on social media that we’d like to set straight. It’s simply NOT true that 87,000 IRS agents with guns will be coming after you any time soon!

Here are the real facts. The Inflation Reduction Act signed by the President on August 16, 2022 appropriates an additional $80 billion to the IRS for a period of 10 years, beginning October 1, 2022. The IRS Commissioner has been tasked to come up with a spending plan and has six months to present it.

Some of the money will go to improving technology at the IRS. Currently, when a paper return is filed, it can take months to process, so there will be improvements to make in that area as well as several other system improvements.  Another area that needs more budget is customer service. Less than one-fifth of all phone calls in 2021 were answered, causing response delays and daily headaches for tax professionals as well as taxpayers.

$45.6 billion is reserved for civil and criminal enforcement. Overall audit rates are at .12 percent, similar to levels seen during World War II.  That means your chance in 2020 of being audited was 1 out of 833 returns. In other words, very, very low.

The bulk of the hires will be in technology, customer service, and civil enforcement. Letters dated August 2022 from Commissioner Rettig and Treasury Secretary Yellen emphasize that the bulk of the enforcement will be targeted at taxpayers earning the highest income levels.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/commissioners-letter-to-the-senate.pdf

https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/JLY-letter-to-Commissioner-Rettig-Signed.pdf

The criminal investigation section of the IRS currently employs about 2,000 agents. And yes, they do carry weapons because they tend to deal with criminals that are armed, such as drug cartel members. Even if this division doubles over the next few years, it means a few thousand hires, not 87,000 as reported on social media.

The hiring market for accountants is currently very tight. Many CPA firms are challenged to fill open positions. With additional retirements occurring over the next few years, the IRS will face the same issues with building, onboarding, and training their new staff of accounting, tax, and audit specialists. Simply, put, it could take longer than planned to make an impact that will be felt at the taxpayer level.

Most tax professionals and some taxpayers have been heavily impacted by the IRS’s poor customer service. The hope is that the additional funds will focus on providing taxpayers with faster answers and faster refunds in the future, most likely starting in 2024 and beyond.  Faster answers and refunds are simply not as exciting as 87,000 agents with guns, which is likely why it didn’t make the news cycle.

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Scott Springer CPA logo icon
Accounting and Bookkeeping Services for QuickBooks® Online

Scott Springer, CPA PLLC

402 A West Palm Valley Blvd #182
Round Rock, TX 78664

(737) 471-4272
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If you track transactions by the QBO fields for Class, Location or Project, but this information is missing on relevant transactions, it can result in incomplete or misleading reports. We assign the proper values to those transactions based on information you provide.

We will provide guidance on how to set up, enter and modify budgets in QBO. In addition, for each budget you set up, we will create, customize and share two budget reports in QBO that you may run on demand: Budget Variance Report and Budget Remaining

We will categorize and record your vendor bills and expenses in QBO. We will do so based upon information you provide and our increasing knowledge of your company. We will ask for clarification, as needed, to ensure transactions are recorded properly.

All packages include unlimited support incidents for issues encountered when using the software subscriptions in your package. You also get unlimited consultations with us for advice on ad-hoc accounting matters.

We will create, customize and configure Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable Aging Summary and Detail reports to be emailed to you on a weekly basis. This provides more current information so that you may act more quickly.

We will allocate revenue and/or expense by a single segment (QBO Class, Location or Project) using either fixed or variable percentages depending on your needs.

To help ensure your accrual-basis reporting is even more accurate and meaningful, we will periodically record the following entries:

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For clients with construction projects that have binding contracts with enforceable rights, we also offer contract accounting using the Completed Contract Method (CCM) or Percentage of Completion Method (PCM).

After calendar year-end, we will prepare and e-file your federal Forms 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC.

Rewind automatically backs up your QBO file, providing the ability to restore your entire QBO file or individual transactions and items.

We will reconcile your payroll tax liabilities as well as other liability accounts such as cafeteria plan withholdings and garnishments where applicable.

We will assist you with setting up your QBO Payroll subscription so that you will be ready for your first payroll. Our assistance includes an online working session where we will walk through the setup steps together including:

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Our assistance doesn’t end with the initial setup. The unlimited ad-hoc support and advice extends to your payroll subscription as well. Need help setting up a new employee? Not sure how to properly record an employee advance? How to record tax value of a gift card provided? How to record an employee bonus? We’re here to help.

QBO Payroll is a full-service payroll subscription. You specify how much and when to pay your employees. Payroll calculations, tax deposits, payroll tax returns and W-2 filing are all done for you. Pay employees by check or direct deposit. Employees have an online portal to view pay stubs, W-2s and more. We will help you select the specific edition that best meets your needs.

We will prepare your Balance Sheet and Income Statement. These are key reports to help you understand your company’s financial position as well as the amount of revenue and profit you’ve made for the period. We will also provide Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable Aging Summary reports to help you better understand who owes you and who you owe.

We will compare your statement balances and transactions with the ones in QBO and make corrections as needed. Reconciliations help ensure your account balances are correct by identifying missing, duplicate or incorrect transactions. We will also alert you regarding any old, uncleared items that may need your attention.

We will perform ongoing, limited review of your transaction entry to look for anything out of the ordinary or likely incorrect.

We will categorize and record your fixed asset acquisitions, depreciation, and disposals in QBO. We will do so based upon information you provide and our increasing knowledge of your company. We will ask for clarification, as needed, to ensure transactions are recorded properly.

We will categorize and record your bank, digital wallet, and credit card transactions in QBO. We will do so based upon information you provide and our increasing knowledge of your company. We will ask for clarification, as needed, to ensure transactions are recorded properly.

Go paperless! We provide a subscription to receipt capture software using optical character recognition (OCR), and we integrate it with QBO. The allows you to easily and securely capture and store supporting documentation for your expenses and vendor bills in the cloud.

QBO is the cloud accounting software we use with all our clients. We will help you select the specific edition that best meets your needs.

If a customer is not assigned to a sales receipt or refund receipt, it can result in incomplete or misleading customer reports. We assign customers to those transactions based on information you provide.

If a vendor is not assigned to a check or expense transaction, it can result in incomplete or misleading customer reports as well as incorrect totals for Form 1099. We assign the proper vendors to those transactions based on information you provide.

We will prepare your Balance Sheet and Income Statement. These are key reports to help you understand your company’s financial position as well as the amount of revenue and profit you’ve made for the period.

If you require historical reports, then it’s important to resolve issues that affect your Income Statement as well. It’s not uncommon for us to find numerous issues, but not all of them necessarily need to be resolved. We let you decide how extensive you want the cleanup to be based on your needs. How do we do this? By separately identifying:

  • issues that affect section subtotals (such as total income, total cost of sales, total operating expenses)
  • issues that do not affect section subtotals but are not categorized properly within a section

If you require historical reports, then it’s important to resolve issues that affect your Income Statement as well. It’s not uncommon for us to find numerous issues, but not all of them necessarily need to be resolved. We let you decide how extensive you want the cleanup to be based on your needs. How do we do this? By separately identifying:

  • issues that affect section subtotals (such as total income, total cost of sales, total operating expenses)
  • issues that do not affect section subtotals but are not categorized properly within a section

Issues affecting your balance sheet account balances (assets, liabilities, equity) should always be resolved even if you don’t need historical reports. That’s because you need accurate balances as a starting point going forward.

If your bank and credit card reconciliations have not been done or are done but need to be fixed, we will take care of it for you. Reconciliations help ensure your account balances are correct by identifying missing, duplicate or incorrect transactions.

If your diagnostic review revealed that your QBO file has unprocessed bank feed items or there are missing transactions (based on bank or credit card statements), we will record those for you. We will ask for clarification, as needed, to ensure transactions are categorized properly.

If your diagnostic review revealed that some of the QBO “products” and “services” are assigned to incorrect income accounts, we will make the proper adjustments to prevent invoices from continuing to be incorrectly categorized.

We will design your new chart of accounts, tailored to your company’s needs, based on information gathered during the diagnostic review as well as other discussions with you. We will then implement the new design in QBO for you. This includes carefully mapping existing accounts to the new ones.

We will prepare your Balance Sheet and Income Statement. These are key reports to help you understand your company’s financial position as well as the amount of revenue and profit you’ve made for the period.

We will set up the open Accounts Receivable invoice balances for each customer, and we will set up the open Accounts Payable bill balances for each vendor. For each customer or vendor, you have the option of having us set up the balance for each individual unpaid invoice/bill OR you may combine the open invoice/bill balances for each customer or vendor.

We will meet with you in a screen sharing session and walk you, step-by-step, through creating your QuickBooks Payments account and connecting it to QBO. If you already have a payment account with Inuit, we will walk you through connecting it to QBO.

If you want financial statements for additional historical periods, we will prepare your Balance Sheet and Income Statement for those periods.

We will reconcile bank, digital wallet, credit card, line of credit and loan accounts. This means we will compare your statement balances and transactions with the ones in QBO, and we will make any necessary adjustments. We will alert you regarding any uncleared items that may need your attention.

We will categorize and record the following transactions to QBO. We will ask for clarification, as needed, to ensure transactions are recorded properly.

  • bank, digital wallet, and credit card transactions
  • vendor bills and expenses
  • fixed asset acquisitions, depreciation, and disposals
  • payroll journals for non-integrated payroll, if applicable

We will set up your budget(s) in QBO using information you provide.

“Products” and “Services” are used in QBO to record customer invoices, sales receipts and credit memos. We will set them up for your use in QBO and map them to the correct income accounts.

If you want to track income and costs by specific projects, we will set up your client projects in QBO using the information you provide.

We will set up your customers/clients and vendors in QBO using the information you provide.

You provide your general ledger account balances to us from your previous accounting system or tax return. We will provide guidance if you’re not sure how to get the information we need. We will set up your account balances in QBO.

For each of your financial accounts supported by QBO, we will either set up the bank feeds for you or we will meet with you and walk you, step-by-step, through setting it up.

We will design your chart of accounts, tailored to your company’s needs, based on information gathered during the planning meeting. We will then implement the new design in QBO for you.

We will configure your QBO settings optimally for your company based on information collected during the planning meeting. We will explain the types of QBO user permissions available, and we will set up your users and permissions based on a list of users that you provide.

We will set up your QBO subscription on your behalf after the planning meeting.

The planning meeting is critically important because we will ask you questions about your company processes and accounts. This information will help us properly plan your implementation.