Transcript Slide 1

© 2011 Financial Operations Networks LLC
Reducing Financial Risk for Your
Organization Regarding Issuing U.S.
Source Income Payments, Payee
Documentation, Withholding and
Information Reporting
John Foertschbeck, CPA
Lynda Foertschbeck
IRSCompliance, Inc.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Key Topics
• Information reporting and withholding compliance must be a
priority throughout your organization
• Why your company should be concerned
• Potential risks for non-compliance
• Activity that can lead to audits
• Cost of non-compliance
• Third-party providers
― Can you outsource your liability?
― How reliable is the provider?
― Contractual Issues
• Minimizing risk
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Why is Information Reporting
a Potential Risk?
• The Federal Government has estimated that the annual tax gap is
$345 billion attributed primarily to non-reporting of income by the
payers and/or the payees
• Logical choice — either raise taxes or collect the taxes currently
owed
• IRS enforcement is greater than ever — 4,000+ new auditors
• New and modified legislation
• As states search for new revenue sources they are enforcing laws for
information reporting, withholding and penalties.
— Backup withholding
— NRA withholding
— Cross-state issues
• Primary targets for the IRS and states are service providers and
non-resident aliens
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Why is Information Reporting
a Potential Risk? (Cont’d.)
• The responsibility to file information returns rests with the payer
• In the extreme, responsibility for the liability can rest with the
“Responsible Person” (executives) IRC 6672
― Company officers can be held personally financially responsible
• Third-party administrators
― Look at your contract
― Ultimate responsibility for reporting and withholding
― Who has fiduciary responsibility?
• FINCEN disclosure
― Must publically disclose known risks for withholding liabilities, penalties
and interest
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Could My
Company Be Audited?
• Senior IRS officials have instructed all large and mid-size
audit teams to include a review of information reporting
and withholding
• All companies are impacted
• Focus on related-party payments
• Full information reporting audits including:
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Policies and procedures
Reporting and withholding systems
Payee documentation and practices
Reporting and withholding history
• Once your company has been notified of a planned audit, it is
too late to correct failures where possible
• Take action prior to audit to identify and correct failures
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Other Reporting Activity
That Could Lead to Audits
• Internal IRS programs are used to provide employment tax
audit leads
• Examples:
― Failure to implement backup withholding, “B” Notice program, no TIN or
invalid payee TIN and name documentation
― Failure to identify non-resident aliens and withhold/deposit proper
NRA withholding
― Payers with repeat payees receiving Forms 1099 with missing or
false TINs
― Repeat payment of penalties for incorrect, missing or false TINs
― Review of Forms 1099-MISC issued to payee where the proceeds are
the payees main source of income
― Lack of withholding on payments issued to both U.S. (28%) and NRA
(30%) where the payee TIN not provided or absence of treaty and/or the
correct tax rates for treaty withholding rates
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Cost of Non-Compliance
• Penalties:
― Late filing, missing or false TIN, $100 per document
• Penalty capped at $500K for small corp., $1.5M for large corp.
• Example: 7,000 docs with missing TINS, penalty proposal would be
assessed on 5,000 documents for small corp., all 7,000 for large corp.
(large corp. cap would be 15,000 documents)
― If intentional disregard penalty is proposed:
• $250 per document with no cap
• Liabilities for the amount of withholding NOT deposited
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Cost of
Non-Compliance (Cont’d.)
• Failure to implement backup withholding
• Payer is responsible for the amount due to be
withheld which then could lead to
― Failure to deposit penalties
― Failure to pay penalties
― Accuracy penalty
― Failure to file penalties
― Plus interest
• IRC 6672(a) could apply
— Can be considered a criminal offense
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Risk Example
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Minimize Risk
Minimize risk with a compliance review of current
process
• Review company policy statements on information reporting
― Does it address domestic and NRA payments?
― Is there oversight to ensure policy compliance?
• There should be a departmental policy and procedure for any
area that could issue payments
• Review training material or programs to train employees on
the regulatory requirements
• Review account opening procedures
• Ensure no NRA payments are classified as U.S.
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Minimize Risk (Cont’d.)
• What steps have you taken to eliminate common errors?
• Are all information returns filed and recipient statements
mailed on a timely basis?
• Are corrections filed and corrected recipient statements
mailed every 30 days?
• Do you process and report information returns for multiple
tax years?
• Do you have the ability to retain the payment activity detail
for an account?
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Minimize Risk (Cont’d.)
• What steps have you taken to improve your accuracy of TIN and
name information?
• Do you require and perform TIN solicitations (Form W-9 or Form W-8
series) for each payee prior to or at time of payment?
• Are TIN solicitations produced and mailed annually as prescribed by
the IRS?
• Is backup withholding put into effect when required?
• Do you currently interface account status information to payment systems
for the purpose of backup withholding?
• Does your current process support “B” Notice matching, notice generation
and status tracking of TIN/name accounts in error?
• Does your current process support TIN penalty matching and generate the
appropriate solicitations when necessary?
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Handling Issues for
Non-Resident Aliens
• Do you recertify expiring Form W-8 series as required?
• Do you have a U.S. issued TIN on the Form W-8?
• Are procedures followed to ensure that the proper Form W-8
certification and/or supporting documentation is obtained from
the payee when making payments to non-resident aliens?
• Have treaty benefits been allowed? Ensure the review process
is correct and well documented.
• Are payments to non-resident aliens reported on Form 1042-S
when applicable?
• Does your 1042-S withholding process meet the IRS guidelines
for the current treaty rates, types of income and exemptions?
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Miscellaneous Items
• Do you have the functionality to report all form
type payments to the IRS, SSA, resident and nonresident states, including U.S. territories?
• Are you capable of processing and reporting
information throughout the year to comply with
current year state reporting requirements?
• Can you generate all required reporting media and
transmittals for original and correction reporting to
IRS, SSA, states and U.S. territories?
• Does your process track payment state and
resident state to meet state reporting and
withholding requirements?
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New and Pending Legislation
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Important
Legislative Requirements
• Corporate Reporting — passed into law, repealed
April 2011
• Reporting of Purchases of Goods & Materials —
passed into law, repealed April 2011
• Increased Penalties — passed
• Section 6050W Merchant Reporting — passed, law
• TIPRA 2005 SEC. 511. withholding on certain
payments issued by federal, state or local
government entities — passed, law
• FATCA — Foreign Account Tax Compliance
Act — passed
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Increased Penalties
Effective January 1, 2011
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Increased Penalties
• First-tier penalty — increased from $15 to $30
per record with the maximum increasing from
$75,000 to $250,000 per calendar year
• Second-tier penalty — increased from $30 to $60
per record with the maximum increasing from
$150,000 to $500,000 per calendar year
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Increased Penalties (Cont’d.)
• Third-tier penalty — increased from $50 to $100 per
record with the maximum increasing from $250,000
to $1.5 million per calendar year
• For small businesses, the maximum increases are:
― First-tier: $25,000 to $75,000
― Second-tier: $50,000 to $200,000
― Third-tier: $100,000 to $500,000
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Risk Summary
• Compliance failures more closely examined
• Penalty tiers and limits will continually increase
• History of non-compliance (past penalties not
abated and/or paid) can impact ability to abate
future penalties
• Intentional disregard
• Planned audits
• FinCen — public disclosure may be required if
penalty or failure risk becomes known or evident
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The Legal Stuff
“Any tax advice included in this written or electronic
communication was not intended or written to be
used, and it cannot be used by the taxpayer for the
purpose of avoiding any penalties that may be
imposed on the taxpayer by a governmental taxing
authority or agency.”
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© 2011 Financial Operations Networks LLC
Thank You!
If you have further questions:
John Foertschbeck, CPA
(410) 734-0590
[email protected]
Lynda Foertschbeck
(410) 734-0580
[email protected]
IRSCompliance, Inc.
www.irscompliance.org