Current Modifications At The Internal Revenue Service Isn't Just ...

While doing some research for a different blog topic, I found a couple of fascinating changes going on at the Internal Revenue Service and thought I would share many of them with you. This info can be discovered on the IRS website if you dig a little and you can call the IRS as I did to find even more data. The IRS phone number is 1-800-829-1040.(1)

1) Six Sigma

The IRS new direction to adopt the Lean Six Sigma methodology is designed to increase effectiveness and keep down expenses. Lean is a time and valued-based process improvement strategy engineered to ensure continuing flow and eliminate waste and non-value-added activities. Six Sigma is a business process improvement method that uses info and facts to supply quantifiable results thru a reduction in process variation. The IRS created the Lean Six Sigma organization to effectively manage the Lean Six Sigma program and projects being initiated at the agency.

2) National Research Program

The IRS did change the Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program that analyzes many aspects of an IRS tax filing. It had been dormant for over 10 years due to fears that the program was too intrusive. The Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program has been replaced by the National Research Program. National Research Program information are used to develop processes to better identify tax returns for audit and at last audit. By picking returns with a higher possibility of change, the IRS can use resources more successfully and not burden compliant taxpayers that file federal taxes. This should supply the most significant cost benefits for the IRS since the initiation of tax efiling.

3) Discriminant Index Function

These functions/formulas figure out what IRS tax filing will be verified. Updated Discriminant Index Function formulas were introduced in 2009. The combined revenue agent and tax compliance officer results show Discriminant Index Function-initiated examinations are generating higher counseled taxes, both on an hourly and per return basis, and are generating more extensive examination agreement rates. Stats also show the share of no-change audits (IRS audits resulting in no change in the amount of taxes due to the IRS) has been reduced since the updated Discriminant Index Function formulas were introduced.

4) The Tax Gap

The tax gap is the variation between taxes that are actually due and taxes that are paid on time ?one class of people targeted are non-filers.

Individual repeat non-filers remain as a real challenge. During Tax Years 1996 through 2005, 47% of the 38.9 million tax payers identified by the IRS that didn?t file federal taxes failed to file timely for a few years. The High Income Repeat Non-Filer (defined as individuals with 3rd party documents reporting revenue of $100,000 or higher) category is very discouraging. Between Tax Years 2002 and 2005, these taxpayers accounted for only between 4% and 6% of known non-filers. Yet, this group of taxpayers accounted for between 59% and 66% of the calculated balance owed from the ones that did not file federal taxes.

And lastly?

5) IRS Software Development ? CMM (tax programs et al)

The Capability Maturity Model for Software (CMM) is a framework that describes the major elements of a good software work flow. The CMM delineate an evolutionary improvement trail from an ad-hoc, immature process to a fully developed, disciplined system.

The CMM covers practices for organization, engineering, and dealing with software engineering and upkeep. When exicuted, these important practices improve the capability of associations to reach targets for cost, schedule, functionality, and product quality.

The CMM establishes a yardstick against which it?s possible to judge, in a repeatable way, the maturity of an organization?s software process and compare it to the state of the practice of the industry [Kitson92]. The CMM may also be used by an establishment to plan enhancements to its software process.

In October, 2011 Douglas H. Shulman Commissioner of Internal Revenue said ?in. September 2010, an independent third party revealed that the IRS lately reached Capability Maturity Model Level 2 ? a key measure of the maturity of our internal programme development organizations?.

He went on to point out, ?Achieving this level allows standardised project management practices across projects. This can improve our agility and quality in delivering software in addition to reduce the cost of developing and maintaining products, and improve the cost of engineering services. These achievements may not grab all of the headlines but are important to our program?s health and accomplishments?.

It appears clear that without CMM the IRS wouldn't have been able to require preparers to efile taxes to the extent they currently do. It has additionally made a contribution to the rate at which an IRS tax refund is processed. This is a program that has actually benefited the tax payer as well as the IRS.

(1) All info and quotes are from the IRS website and documents provided by the IRS.

Written by David Bishop, CPA, Industry Director ? Accounting & Tax for UsersUnite.com. David writes ablog that discusses the news and topics related to software in the public accounting and tax preparation industries. If you have got a subject that youwould like to see David write about please send him an e-mail with the details at david.bishopusersunite.com.

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Fourteen Individuals Plead Guilty for Their Roles in Scheme to ...

WASHINGTON, DC ? June 5, 2012 ? (RealEstateRama) ? Fourteen individuals pleaded guilty yesterday in the District of Nevada for their roles in the scheme to fraudulently take control of various home owners? associations (HOAs) in the Las Vegas area, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department?s Criminal Division; FBI Special Agent in Charge Kevin Favreau of the Las Vegas Field Office; Sheriff Doug Gillespie of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department; and Richard Weber, Chief of the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), announced today.

According to plea documents, the defendants each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. The defendants who pleaded guilty today include: Rosalio Alcantar, 60; Patrick Bergsrud, 43; Robert Bolten, 44; Glenn Brown, 52; Paul Citelli, 59; Michelle DeLuca, 51; Charles Hawkins, 51; Sami Robert Hindiyeh, 54; Lisa Kim, 47; Brian Jones, 38; Morris Mattingly, 51; Frank Sutton, 58; Anthony Roy Wilson, 34; and Jeanne Winkler, 44.

According to court documents, the fraud scheme operated from approximately August 2003 through February 2009 with various co-conspirators joining that scheme at different times. The conspirators operated the scheme to direct construction defect litigation and repairs at condominium complexes to a particular law firm and construction company.

In order to accomplish the scheme, certain co-conspirators identified HOAs that could potentially bring construction defect cases. Once identified, the co-conspirators enlisted real estate agents to identify condominium units within the HOA communities for purchase. The co-conspirators then enlisted individuals as straw purchasers to use their names and credit to purchase condominiums in the complexes. The defendants admitted that the co-conspirators provided the down payments and monthly payments to the straw purchasers, including HOA dues and mortgage payments, and that various false and misleading statements were made to secure financing for the properties. Certain co-conspirators operated and managed the payments associated with these properties. The payments were often wired between California and Nevada.

Bergsrud and Wilson admitted in their plea documents that they acted as real estate agents for the purpose of identifying units in HOA communities for use by the co-conspirators and to assist with the property transfer documents. Wilson also assisted the conspiracy by developing ways to increase capital, such as refinancing some of the units to recapture the down payments and other fees and also in managing the finances for the properties. Bergsrud, Bolten, Citelli, Hawkins, Mattingly, and Sutton admitted in their plea documents that they acted as straw purchasers at various condominium complexes.

Alcantar admitted that he opened, operated, and managed five bank accounts on behalf of the co-conspirator construction company owner, using names of shell limited liability companies for the purpose of concealing the identity of the individuals funding the conspiracy. Alcantar managed the transfer of more than $8 million during the time period of the conspiracy, including deposits made from the co-conspirator construction defect attorney.

According to plea documents, on several occasions, the co-conspirators transferred a partial interest in a particular condominium to another co-conspirator for the purpose of making it appear as if the co-conspirator was a bona fide homeowner in the community and could thereby stand for election to the HOA board of directors. Many of the straw purchasers and those who acquired a transferred interest in an HOA community agreed with co-conspirators to use their ownership interest to run for election to the respective HOA board of directors. It was through the boards of directors that the conspirators controlled the activities at the HOAs.

According to plea documents, Bergsrud, Hawkins, DeLuca, Mattingly, and Sutton agreed to become board members at certain condominium complexes and thereafter breached their fiduciary duties to the homeowners, using their positions to vote in furtherance of the conspiracy.

To ensure the co-conspirators won the elections, the co-conspirators at times employed deceitful tactics, such as submitting fake and forged ballots. Some of these ballots were sent through the U.S. mail.

On several occasions, co-conspirators attempted to create the appearance that the elections were legitimate. This was done at times by hiring attorneys to run the HOA board elections as ?special election masters? to preside over the HOA board elections and supervise the counting of ballots. The special election masters were complicit and part of the conspiracy. They allowed co-conspirators to access the ballots for the purpose of opening the ballots and influencing the results to ensure certain co-conspirator candidates won the election.

Brown and Hindiyeh admitted in plea documents that they assisted in the HOA election rigging. Jones admitted that he acted as a special election master for certain HOA elections and allowed co-conspirators to access the ballots and alter the votes in favor of co-conspirator candidates. Wilson also admitted that he assisted in promoting the co-conspirator candidates in elections.

Once elected, the co-conspirator board members met with other co-conspirators in order to manipulate board votes and process, including the selection of property managers, contractors, general counsel, and attorneys to represent the HOA. Once hired, co-conspirators, including property managers and general counsel, often recommended that the HOA board hire the co-conspirator construction company for construction defect repairs and the co-conspirator law firm to handle the construction defect litigation.

Kim admitted that she agreed with the co-conspirators to become a property manager at a condominium complex. She knew the co-conspirator controlled board would manipulate their votes to hire her company. Kim used her position as the property manager to help the co-conspirators falsify ballots and retain their positions on the HOA board.

Winkler admitted in plea documents that she agreed to become the general counsel for the Vistana condominium complex. She bid for a position as general counsel knowing that she had a prior attorney-client and financial relationship with the co-conspirator construction company owner who intended to direct the board to award the construction defect repair contract to him. Winkler admitted that she used her position to handle legal matters for the HOA as directed by her co-conspirators and that she violated her fiduciary duties to the bona fide homeowners.

According to court documents, the defendants admitted that they were each given cash or things of value for their assistance in purchasing the properties, obtaining HOA membership status, rigging elections, or using their position to manipulate the HOA?s business to enrich the co-conspirators at the expense of the HOA and the legitimate homeowners.

The maximum prison sentence for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud is 30 years.

Ten other individuals pleaded guilty in 2011 as part of the government?s ongoing criminal investigation of activities related to various Las Vegas HOAs.

The case is being prosecuted by Deputy Chief Charles La Bella and Trial Attorney Mary Ann McCarthy of the Criminal Division?s Fraud Section. The case is being investigated by the FBI and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Criminal Intelligence Section.

This prosecution is part of efforts underway by President Barack Obama?s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. President Obama established the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to wage an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch and, with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes. For more information about the task force visit www.stopfraud.gov.

Contact:
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(202) 514-2007/TDD (202) 514-1888

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96% The Kid with a Bike

All Critics (106) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (102) | Rotten (4)

The film should be required viewing for everyone who has lost faith in the power of random acts of kindness.

"The Kid With a Bike" vibrates with desperation, frustration and the simple unfairness of life, leavened with glimpses of hope.

Cyril is one of the most inspiringly resilient, self-aware young characters to arrive on-screen in recent memory...

"The Kid With A Bike'' is, remarkably, about hope - about the connections people forge when the ones they've been given desert them.

The Dardennes' quiet, naturalistic style strips this story of melodrama but not of emotion.

Without diminishing the boy's intensity or making him in any way ingratiating, the Dardennes take us into his mind, and we begin to appreciate not only his predicament but his resiliency.

A frank, no-nonsense drama filled with compassion for a lost soul kid abandoned by his father.

...a deeply humane movie that deserves to be compared with one of its obvious inspirations, Vittorio De Sica's neo-realist classic Bicycle Thieves

A moving, sweet and at times harrowing tale...

De France does a terrific job of balancing maternal instinct with matter-of-factness, in a performance that is more human than tender - and all the more powerful for it.

Unlike many films, it genuinely earns every feeling it evokes.

a complex interweaving of bitter reality and a deeply humane worldview that sees the possibility of redemption in even the cruelest of circumstances

A beautiful and stirring story of unconditional compassion, of emotional honesty, and -- above all -- of hope.

The Dardennes' style resists cheap sentimentality, yet in The Kid with a Bike it yields a deeply moving examination of love as a shield.

Dardenne brothers set an orphan in search of a father

Will bad breaks break a boy?

How the Dardennes, time and again, turn gritty, mundane subjects into transcendent moments of honesty and truth is one of the great cinematic wonders.

This is a film that's not always easy to watch, but just about impossible to forget.

It is crystal clear on at least one point: People are mysterious and beautiful, and they need each other.

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne offer another in their remarkable succession of contemporary neo-realist dramas in this quietly devastating but gently hopeful [film].

[It] gives obvious homage to a variety of films. ... But one inspiration shines throughout the movie ... The Red Balloon.

...the film delivers a final act as riveting as it is artistically satisfying. Not many films can claim a perfect ending. This one can.

...manages to balance a spiritual sense of grace with the earthy eye of a here-and-now realist.

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Obama staffer to testifies at John Edwards trail

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) ? A former campaign spokeswoman for John Edwards testified Wednesday that his wife angrily confronted a key donor about his support for the presidential candidate's pregnant mistress in 2007 at a hotel in Iowa.

Jennifer Palmieri was called to the stand by prosecutors at Edwards' corruption trial. She said the candidate had called her to the Davenport, Iowa, hotel room where Elizabeth Edwards was arguing with campaign finance chairman Fred Baron and his wife about the couple's financial help to Rielle Hunter.

Palmieri had become close friends with Elizabeth Edwards, and her husband hoped her presence could help calm the situation. Palmieri is now the deputy communications director for President Barack Obama.

That day in October of 2007, Palmieri said Baron's wife, Lisa Blue, admitted to Elizabeth Edwards that she had flown Hunter to Los Angeles for a shopping trip.

"You've got to hold your friends close and your enemies closer," Palmieri quoted Blue as telling the enraged wife. Blue added that Hunter was a "loose cannon" who could have exposed the affair to the media, Palmieri said.

At the time, a tabloid was publishing an article about the affair, and Palmieri said the campaign was absorbed with keeping the story from crossing over into the mainstream media. Edwards had told his wife he had a brief fling with Hunter, but that he had ended the affair many months earlier, according to earlier testimony.

In fact, Edwards had continued the affair and Hunter was then pregnant with his child. A close aide to Edwards, Andrew Young, had rented the mistress a home a few miles away from the Edwards family estate in Chapel Hill. The candidate had kept the arrangement secret from his wife.

Palmieri said Elizabeth Edwards couldn't comprehend why Baron and Blue would have any contact with Hunter.

"She didn't understand why they were embracing her, spending time with her," Palmieri said.

Asked what Edwards was doing during the argument, Palmieri said she didn't remember him saying much.

"He was more of a spectator than a participant," she testified.

How much Edwards knew about the money spent in the effort to cover up his affair is a critical question at his trial. Edwards has pleaded not guilty to six counts for campaign finance violations related to about $1 million in secret payments from Baron and 101-year-old heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon.

Edwards has denied knowing about the money, much of which was used to hide the pregnant mistress as he campaigned for the White House. Baron flew Hunter across the country in his private jet, paid for stays in luxury resorts and secured a $20,000-a-month rental mansion in California.

On Tuesday, campaign speechwriter Wendy Button testified that Edwards had later admitted to her he knew "all along" that Baron had been supporting his mistress and baby. The girl was born in February 2008 a few weeks after he suspended his presidential campaign after poor showings in the early primary states.

That contradicts what Edwards has said about his knowledge of the money, most notably in a nationally televised network interview in August 2008.

On Wednesday, Edwards' defense lawyer Abbe Lowell admitted his client had "lied quite extensively" in that interview, saying he had only a brief sexual relationship with Hunter and denying he fathered her baby.

Palmieri said she had advised Edwards against doing the interview, which came shortly after tabloid reporters photographed Edwards visiting his mistress and baby at a Beverly Hills hotel.

"I said I did not want him doing the interview if he was going to lie," Palmieri recounted. "Even I didn't believe what he was saying."

But Palmieri said Edwards decided to go ahead anyway after his wife pressed him to make a public statement denying the baby was his.

In an attempt to mitigate the damage, Palmieri said she selected ABC's Nightline as the venue for the interview because the news show was going up that night against the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on rival NBC, which was expected to get far bigger ratings.

"If John couldn't do the interview and tell the truth, it was a mistake," Palmieri said. "I didn't think it would be great if the whole country watched."

___

Follow AP writer Michael Biesecker at twitter.com/mbieseck

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Clarion Next Gate hands-on (video)

CTIA, while focused on mobile technology, often gives us the chance to peek at other devices that bridge into our beloved mobile world. Clarion's Next Gate is one such device, running on a 7-inch WVGA display and interfacing with your iPhone via the dock connector. Once you're hooked up -- which should be straightforward as it only needs plugging in -- the Next Gate allows control of apps on your device. First off, we like the idea that your iPhone is controlled by the Next Gate -- in fact when firing up an app in the demo you can see it cycle open on the iPhone display -- but its lower resolution display, hung adjacent to an iPad, made us immediately yearn for an upgraded display. The selection of usable apps includes such niceties as Twitter, Facebook, streaming radio, and of course navigation. All the apps we saw seemed to perform quite well, though we weren't on the open road in bright sunlight with the top down and the quadruplets screaming bloody murder in the back seat, thankfully. Have a peek at the video and gallery below for a tour of the interface and some of its functionality.

Gallery: Clarion Next Gate hands-on (video)

Joseph Volpe contributed to this report.

Continue reading Clarion Next Gate hands-on (video)

Clarion Next Gate hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 May 2012 21:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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