Posted September 22, 2011 at 3:51 pm
from PayPal.com
Everything you need to know about IRC Section 6050W
Starting in 2011, all US payment providers including PayPal will be required by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to report sales information to the IRS about certain customers who receive payments for the sale of goods or services through PayPal.
We want to help you understand these changes.
Applies to sellers receiving over $20,000 in gross payment volume AND over 200 payments Applies only for sales on or after January 1, 2011
Filed Under: Lifestyle Design
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Posted August 17, 2011 at 5:37 pm
For International individuals who wish to control their own destiny
by Dr. Charles Freeman
The report, is crammed with interesting and hopefully valuable information for international individuals who wish to control their own destiny.
Such individuals need all the impartial and informed news, reports and advice they can get to help them live freely from those who seek to tax and regulate them into servitude, I am happy to be of assistance and producing for such people is a great pleasure for me.
Let’s face facts. The more a person pays out in excessive and involuntary taxes, the more intrusive and/or pointless laws and regulations he must conform to and obey… the more he belongs to the dictates and whims of other men.
Governments by their nature believe that they own their citizens. They might not actually stand up and say as much, but they certainly think it.
And while I am on my soapbox… not only do men who make up “your” government want to own you (or at the very least, control you), they so often manage the actual various affairs of state with a degree of sometimes unbelievable incompetence.
For example, no government I can think of is currently inventing more new laws and regulations to marshal their citizens towards ever greater levels of “compliance” than that of the so called “European Union”.
When I look at the crazy bungling bureaucracy that runs it, I shudder. The essence of any bureaucracy is that it is a system that allows all those involved in it, whether officials or politicians, to avoid any moral responsibility for their own actions, which for them is probably just as well.
They always have plausible sounding arguments for every piece of new legislation that they produce.
But the eventual results are quite often insane as anyone who objectively follows the goings on in Brussels and the many crazy and out of touch edicts that flow our from there will know only too well.
If you are like me, you might quite rightly think that as a self providing adult you are quite capable of making your own decisions about how you live your life and run your business. Also that the faceless bureaucrooks in Brussels, Washington or wherever, are the very last people you would want to make any decisions for you, particularly important ones.
Ordinary business people risk getting squashed between the mafias and international bureaucracy. Organized crime could amount to $500 billion a year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or $1,000 billion, if United Nations crime consultant, Tim Wall, is to be believed. The truth is, nobody knows.
If you think you’re overtaxed, consider the case of the owner of a Swedish fashion chain, Stefan Persson, who has worked all year only to find he owes more in tax than he has earned. Not surprisingly, he is now thinking of emigrating and taking his company with him.
On a taxable income of SKr178 million ($23 million) the tax grabbers are demanding SKr54 million in income tax plus SKr127 million wealth tax, leaving him out of pocket by SKr3 million after working all year. In this topsy turvy nanny state, rather than run a business creating jobs, wealth and tax revenue for the government, he would be better off signing on the dole and becoming a burden on the state.
How crazy can you get?
But there is worse to come, following increases in wealth tax. Assuming the same income and assets, he will be forced to find a further SKr45 million in the next tax year.
“It would be enormously beneficial for me to live in almost any other country,” he comments wryly. Although he loves his homeland and has no wish to live elsewhere, he has no choice but to consider moving himself and headquarters of his company Hennes & Mauritz, abroad.
Even though 80 per cent of his firm’s operations are outside Sweden, he has patriotically continued to support his country and pay his taxes. But there are limits to the price of patriotism.
One by one, major Swedish companies are being driven out to a more tax friendly environment. Some companies have already moved their headquarters not to offshore island tax havens, just to other European countries with “normal” rates of taxation.
Furniture company Ikea is now in neighbouring Denmark, and packaging group Tetra is based in Switzerland. Telecoms company Ericsson does 60 per cent of its research and manufacturing in Sweden but only sells six per cent of its production within the country, so is considering moving abroad. What logic is there in staying in such an over taxed environment.
A key reason for these moves is that high taxes and social security payments are making it difficult to recruit the foreign scientists and technicians essential for Sweden’s high tech companies if they are to develop new products and retain their world market share.
Would you be tempted to live in a country with tax rates up to 50 per cent, plus social security payments, high as 39 per cent levied on total earnings with no maximum limit and top of that a wealth tax on 100 percent of the listed value of shares. 100% Wealth tax in Sweden is not just of the super-rich. It affects 42 per cent of full time workers.
Sweden is an extreme case. but the same principal applies in many of the developed countries. When these companies pull out their money and transfer their production, they generally only take a fraction of their workers with them. Those left behind are on the dole – a – temporarily – so that the government has more unemployment benefits to pay out of – a reduced tax income.
Editors note: Dr. Charles Freeman is the offshore guru, consulting expert and the author of the best selling report, How To Legally Obtain a 2nd Passport” Updated & Revised – for 2011
Filed Under: Lifestyle Design
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Posted August 15, 2011 at 4:42 pm
from The Reformed Broker
Warren Buffett’s latest New York Times op-ed is about the absurdity of billionaires paying a high-teens percentage in federal income tax while the middle class shoulders a 30-some odd percent burden each year. He is amazed at the lengths Congress will go to protect he and his ilk..
While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investor
These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.
Buffett is not calling for an across the board tax hike, contrary to what the kneejerk all-taxes-are-always-bad-all-the-time crowd will tell you.
Rather, he is looking for a bit of pragmatism as the nation seeks to get its fiscal shit together [continue]…
Filed Under: High Jinks
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Posted June 20, 2011 at 12:27 am
by Barrie McKenna
The Globe and Mail
Janet Selby never imagined she was anything other than a Canadian.
After all, she has lived in Canada for all of her 47 years. She went to school here, voted in elections, travelled on a Canadian passport and built a successful career as an accountant and corporate recruiter.
But a recent call from her online broker forced her to confront a long-forgotten past. Ms. Selby spent the first four days of her life in the United States, born in 1963 to two Canadians pursuing graduate work at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Ill.
That makes Ms. Selby an accidental American – a reality that comes with sweeping tax and reporting obligations that could now cost her thousands of dollars and a monster headache.
“It’s frustrating,” Ms. Selby said from Toronto, where she has lived most of her life. “I’m a responsible citizen. I’ve paid my taxes dutifully since I’ve been earning money. It makes me feel like it’s an overreaching tax grab by the Americans.”
Ms. Selby is not alone. Hundreds of thousands of Americans living in Canada may soon run into the increasingly long and muscular arm of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Many aren’t aware of what is about to hit them as Canadian financial institutions comply with a new law that requires them to identify their U.S. customers to the IRS, tax experts warn. Banks and customers who fail to provide the information would be hit with steep penalties on all their U.S. income.
Unlike almost every country in the world, the United States taxes its citizens based on worldwide income, regardless of where they live.
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Posted April 28, 2011 at 12:00 pm
by Mike Young
The Texas House just passed an Internet Sales Tax Bill (HB 2403) aimed squarely at Amazon and other Internet retailers. Instead of cutting spending, these leftists are raising taxes. That’s not pro-growth. It’s wealth redistribution, stealing from entrepreneurs to fund government programs that should be cut or eliminated.
This Texas Internet sales tax bill isn’t as “bad” as ones passed in more liberal states. However, there is nothing “Main Street” or “fair” about taxing online businesses.
Once an Internet sales tax is in place, you can be sure that the rates will increase and more online businesses will have to pay it because the government is filled with a bunch of politicians who want to rob entrepreneurs to pay for their favorite goodies.
I’ve included a copy of the bill below.
Filed Under: Market Bytes
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Posted December 2, 2010 at 12:18 pm
by Kathleen Peddicord:
“Most U.S. expats realize that the United States taxes its citizens on their worldwide income,” writes international tax guru Chris XXXXX.
“They understand, too, that every U.S. citizen must file a U.S. tax return every year, regardless where he chooses to reside.
“What many don’t recognize, though, is that an American abroad can use a foreign corporation, in a zero-tax jurisdiction, to legally and legitimately reduce U.S. tax on his business income.
“Your first line of defense as a U.S. expat is the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), which excludes from U.S. income tax the first US$91,500 of wage or self-employment income earned by a U.S. citizen ‘residing’ in another country. (Technically, you’re ‘residing’ abroad if you’re outside the U.S. for at least 330 days during any 365-day period.)
“However, this is only the start of strategies available to you as an American abroad to reduce or even eliminate your annual tax bill.
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Posted August 24, 2010 at 12:24 pm
by Chris Edwards
Director of Fiscal Policy Studies, Cato Institute, 2002
Any tax system creates a threat to individual liberty because “the power to tax involves the power to destroy,” as Chief Justice John Marshall observed.[1] But the federal income tax and its enforcement harm civil liberties much more than necessary to raise needed funds for the government. Certainly, the IRS performs poorly and too easily abuses the rights of citizens. But ultimately Congress is to blame for creating an excessively complex and high-rate tax system. New laws to increase taxpayer protections and replacement of the income tax with a simpler, flatter consumption-based tax could greatly reduce the following 10 areas of civil liberties abuse.
1. “Vertical” Inequality. Although equality under the law is a bedrock American principle, the income tax treats citizens unequally. “Vertical” inequality is created by hugely different tax burdens on citizens at different income levels. For example, households earning between $30,000 and $75,000 pay an average 10 percent of their income in federal income taxes, compared to 27 percent for households earning more than $200,000.[2] Fully 36 percent of U.S. households pay no income tax.[3] Besides violating the spirit of equal protection guarantees of the Constitution, such unequal burdens distort perceptions about the costs and benefits of government because programs appear to be free of cost to many.
2. “Horizontal” Inequality. Even people with similar incomes are treated unequally by the many exemptions, deductions, credits, and other intricacies of the income tax. For example, there are 59 income tax provisions that vary depending on marital status.[4] Likewise, the tax differences between homeowners and renters with the same incomes can be thousands of dollars because of itemized deductions for property taxes and mortgage interest. Another disparity is the unequal access to savings vehicles in the tax code depending on individuals’ work situations and other factors. If all individual savings were exempt from tax, as under a consumption-based system, individuals would be treated more equally.
3. Complexity, Ambiguity, and Uncertainty. Certainty in the law is a bulwark against arbitrary and abusive government. But there is no certainty under the income tax because it rests on an inherently difficult-to-measure tax base, uses no consistent definition of “income” or other concepts, and is a labyrinth of narrow and limited provisions created by politicians intent on social engineering.[5] The current IRS commissioner concedes that the income tax has become too complex for accurate administration, which is evident in the 28 percent IRS error rate on phone inquiries and 60 percent error rate on audits.[6] Business tax rules are so ambiguous that many disputes drag on for years and are valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars.[7] Individuals are baffled by the complex rules on capital gains, pension and savings plans, and a growing list of targeted incentives. Those complexities would be eliminated under a flat consumption-based tax system.
4. Huge Size and Instability of Tax Law. Citizens are required to know the nation’s laws and comply with them. Yet federal tax rules are massive in scope and constantly changing. Tax laws, regulations, and related documentation span 45,662 pages.[8] There were 441 changes to tax rules in last year’s tax-cut law alone.[9] That law guaranteed a decade of tax instability with phased-in changes lasting until 2010. Income tax instability is typified by changes in taxes on capital. There have been 25 substantial changes in the treatment of long-term capital gains since 1922.[10] Pension tax laws have been substantially changed nearly every year since the early 1980s, creating regulatory backlogs and leaving employers unsure about how to comply.[11] Last year’s tax-cut law alone had 64 separate rule changes for pension and saving plans.[12]
5. Lack of Financial Privacy. The broad-based income tax necessitates a large invasion of financial privacy that a low-rate consumption-based tax could avoid. The IRS regularly gains access to a myriad of personal records, such as mortgage records, credit card data, phone records, banking and investment records, real property transaction data, and personal correspondence. This broad IRS authority to obtain records without court supervision has been referred to by the Supreme Court as “a power of inquisition.”[13]
Filed Under: High Jinks
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Posted August 24, 2010 at 12:09 am
‘What if you owned a small business where your customers came to your store or office, and parked in your parking lot? What if you owned a small business where your customers came to your store or office, parked in your parking lot, and the government made you pay taxes for each and every car?
Would you still own a small business?
These may sound like hypothetical questions, but for a city in Kansas, they have become reality. Last night, the city of Mission passed a new tax on driveways. Yes, driveways. Home owners will pay $72 each year for having a driveway. Business owners, though, take the biggest hit in this new tax, which is being hailed as “revolutionary” and “ground-breaking.” Beginning in December, all businesses will be taxed a fee of at least $3,558 per year.’
Filed Under: High Jinks
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Posted August 13, 2010 at 12:50 am
From Forbes:
Everyone must pay federal income taxes, but you also can contest many Internal Revenue Service tax bills. When you disagree with the IRS, procedure is important. You must pay attention to the order in which notices arrive and the specific ways in which you can respond. Here are 10 things you should know:
1. Most Audits are Via Correspondence
Most audits these days don’t involve…
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Posted June 8, 2010 at 2:36 pm
The following is an excerpt from the free 29-page American Expatriation Guide, written by a former U.S. citizen who wants to remain anonymous.
Read what he has to say – from a “been there, done that” perspective – and maybe take your own first steps to move to greener pastures.
Everybody has their own personal reasons for expatriating, but here are some of the benefits:
1) Freedom from the global U.S. tax net. Taxing you no matter where you breathe on this earth is wanton American exceptionalism. What other nations don’t dare do to their citizens, the U.S. government doesn’t think twice about.
Once you renounce, it’s your choice either to live the rest of your life free of any tax net, or to pick a place you want to be year-round and opt into the tax system (assuming it’s not a tax-free jurisdiction). If you do, you’ll at least know you have the freedom to walk away from it by simply moving elsewhere.
Taxes in the U.S. are already high, and rates are set to increase across the board. To gain some perspective, it’s clarifying to calculate the number of months per year you work for the government. How many months did it take to pay all the federal, state, and local income taxes, capital gains taxes, FICA taxes, property taxes, and AMT – plus the raft of permitting, licensing and accounting costs you incur over the course of a year? Add corporate taxes if you’re a business owner.
And don’t forget the new 3.8% health care surcharge tax on all investment income, including dividends. Be honest and add it all up. You’ll then have a decent idea of how much it costs you in time and money to be a U.S. citizen every year. That cost will rise dramatically going forward.
Read the other 9 benefits here…
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