Fraud in the workplace may cause U.S. organizations to lose an average of 7% of their annual revenue. It is therefore important to know the basic categories of occupational fraud, and who is likely to commit fraud. Occupational fraud is essentially defined as,”taking advantage of an occupational situation to attain personal enrichment by intentionally misusing…
Personal Service Corporations & Unreasonable Compensation A topic that has been a long standing issue with the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) is the determination of whether or not the compensation paid to shareholders is reasonable. While all corporate taxpayers need to be cognizant of this matter, it is of particular interest to personal service corporations….
Allocation, Allocation, Allocation! “Put numbers on the right line on a tax return!” Frank, are you serious? In my next life I want to be an auditor so I can write “pass due to immateriality” on my work papers. I get flak when my allocation of income to a partner is $10 off from the…
Transfer Pricing – Intangible Property (from “A Primer on Transfer Pricing” by Robert J. Misey, Jr., updated by Kimberlee S. Phelan) Reminder of the example: NJCo manufactures and sells widgets in the U.S. Due to increased widget orders from Canadian customers, NJCo decides to form a Canadian distribution subsidiary (“CanSub”). Although, CanSub does not have…
VALUATION, VALUATION, VALUATION Ok, I had to come back. All this talk of me lying on some beach in the Caribbean is all wrong. After I got back from San Diego, I became buried in audits. I did pass Bob’s office and, as I suspected, his feet were up on the desk as he was…
Complicated financial issues often come into play during a divorce settlement, and even more so in high net worth cases. It’s common for one spouse to assume the money management role in a marriage, and rarely do both spouses have equal knowledge of their financial affairs. So when a spouse is suspicious of unreported income…
Share After experiencing success in the business world, many families decide to establish a family foundation to give back to the community or to a specific organization that is near and dear to their hearts. In addition to favorable tax benefits, family foundations can engage younger family members in philanthropy and establish a legacy of…
Selecting a Money Manager: Some Thoughts on Investment Fees This is my second week of substituting for Frank who claims that he is too busy to write his blog. I have not seen Frank for a while so I assume he is buried under paper in a closet sized office performing an audit for an…
Memo to Hedge Fund Managers – Tax Efficiency Counts Frank Boutillette, the creator and author of this blog, is extremely busy this time of the year auditing broker-dealers and registered investment advisors. As one of his tax partners, I am not sure what this auditing stuff entails, but Frank tells me it is exciting and…
Six Social Media Tools to Get Free Tax Information Finding information on the Internal Revenue Service’s (“IRS”) website has historically been challenging. The website has become a very good resource tool; however, there is often a plethora of information to sort through before being able to locate specific information. In an effort to make its…