Neilley & Co. CPA Blog

In this case, we don’t mean your budget, we mean after you’re gone. No one likes to think about their own demise, but we’ve seen too many cases where a dearly departed’s funds or other assets don’t end up going where they intended. That’s even more true today, with the rising incidence of divorce, remarriage, blended families, etc.

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With tax time right around the corner, this seems like a good time to remind you to keep receipts for anything that you’re going to claim as a deduction on your tax return. For a business or a rental property, that’s just about everything.  For individuals, it includes charitable contributions, employee business expenses, etc.; you usually don’t need receipts for personal purchases such as groceries, gifts, utilities, car expenses, appliances etc. (although you might need some of those for other purposes, such as warranty claims, for example). You should also keep a canceled check copy or online confirmation of payments for state and local income tax payments, whether a balance due on last year’s return or estimated tax payments for the coming year.

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We have heard from more clients lately about phone calls they’ve received supposedly from the IRS, and the Ohio Attorney General is reporting the same.  The callers usually make threats like suing you, sending the police to arrest you, deportation, etc.  And they usually want you to send payment immediately in the form of prepaid credit cards, give them your credit card account info, or even bank account numbers to do a direct debit (trust us, IRS already has your bank account numbers).

Calls like this can be very unnerving even when you think they’re fake, but rest assured, they are.  IRS NEVER initiates contact with you by phone*, they always send notices by mail first, and even then rarely call you in person.  They don’t sue you, they don’t arrest you, and they don’t care about deportation.  They certainly don’t accept payment via prepaid credit cards!  They WILL levy funds out of your account if you ignore their legitimate notices (so don’t ever do that!), but they have no need to make any other kinds of threats. (*Recently, we’ve seen IRS sometimes making “courtesy” calls to let you know you’re being audited, but it’s just a heads up that your notice is on its way in the mail, they don’t ask you for any information.)

If you ever receive a call purportedly from the IRS, just hang up.  If they call back, hang up louder if it makes you feel better.  But don’t play their game.

If you ever receive a notice in the mail on the other hand, DO NOT ignore it or put it off.  Send us a copy so we can take a look at what’s going on.  More often than not, the notice is wrong and you won’t owe anything, but we have to deal with it right away.  Whether it’s wrong or not, waiting any length of time will just make it harder (and more expensive) to resolve.