The IRS announced that it has awarded nearly $8 million in matching grants to support its Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. The funds will be divided between 147 organizations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Richard Byrd, Jr., the Commissioner for the IRS Wage and Investment Operating Division, said of the distributions, “We’re proud to support the VITA program and their volunteer tax preparers who provide an invaluable service to millions of taxpayers.”
VITA, which was created in 1969, is a volunteer program which aids low and moderate income taxpayers. Generally, this means individuals and families with adjusted gross incomes of $49,000 or lower. In 2009, more than 3 million tax returns were prepared at nearly 12,000 locations through VITA and the Tax Counseling for the Elderly programs.
You can see a list of organizations which received funds, including the amounts, here (downloads as a pdf).
Notably absent on the list?
Yep, ACORN. No surprise here.
And here’s their evidence:
Of course more folks are e-filing. It’s fast, it’s easy. And with more folks than ever with internet and computer access, it’s to be expected.
But.
And you knew there would be a but.
Here’s my cynical take… You’ll note fewer taxpayers filing generally, down a whopping 12 million this year. There’s a bump in 2008 – certainly attributable to the stimulus. Might it be the case – and I’m just saying – that folks have been encouraged to filing electronically in order to get money back a little quicker.
I’d love to see the data for 2009 returns filed in 2010. I’m betting if you back out the homebuyer’s, that percentage will drop a little. And I’m not a betting girl normally. But I have a hunch on this one.
It looks like 2010 likely won’t be all that different from 2009 – at least when it comes to taxes.
Each year, by law, the dollar amounts for certain tax provisions are indexed for inflation. But inflation hasn’t budged all that much (that’s good, right?) which means that a lot of nothing is happening. Here’s an update on next year’s numbers released by the IRS earlier this month:
- Personal and dependency exemptions remain at $3,650.
- The standard deduction for married filing jointly remains at $11,400.
- The standard deduction for single taxpayers and married filing separately remains at $5,700.
- The standard deduction for head of household increases by $50 to $8,400.
- The annual gift tax exclusion remains unchanged at $13,000.
The big kicker, of course, is what the heck is going on with the estate tax? As of now, nobody knows for sure.
So, who among us didn’t see this coming? IRS Commish Doug Shulman has announced the establishment of a new enforcement unit targeting the very wealthy. The group, called the Global High Wealth Industry, will specifically investigate partnerships, offshore trusts and other techniques used by the wealthy to hide income.
How wealthy is wealthy? Unlike a number of reality TV shows of late, this isn’t about faux millionaires. Try tens of millions of dollars wealthy.
The new enforcement group comes on the heels of a recent amnesty program offered to taxpayers who had been hiding money offshore. Tax pros, including me, viewed the amnesty program as the writing on the wall that the IRS would be ramping up enforcement. A mere two weeks after the extended amnesty deadline, the IRS confirmed that suspicion.
Whether the new enforcement group is a success remains to be seen. Some critics argue that an additional level of administration won’t help – and may, in fact, just confuse matters. But Shulman sees it differently: “You cannot assess compliance among the nation’s wealthiest individuals by looking only at their 1040s…. Our goal is to better understand the entire economic picture of the enterprise controlled by the wealthy individual and to assess the tax compliance of that overall enterprise.”
