Effective July 1, the three major credit reporting bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) have removed medical debts that went into collection but were later paid from credit reports. Before this change, these types of debts would stay on credit reports for up to 7 years. Starting next year, even more medical debt will be taken off credit reports with all unpaid medical debts up to $500 being stripped from them. The combination of these two changes is expected to remove 70% of the approximately $88 billion in medical debt that currently appears on the credit reports of 43 million Americans. These changes are aimed at helping people with credit checks by landlords and employers as well as applying for loans. According to the CFPB, unpaid medical bills account for 58% of all debt in third-party collection, yet the agency’s research has found that it isn’t a very strong predictor of overall creditworthiness.
Still struggling with debt? Call our office at 816-524-4949 or click here to schedule a consultation to discuss your options with an attorney.
Tax credits and deductions can help lower the amount of tax owed. All taxpayers should begin planning now to take advantage of the credits and deductions they are eligible for when they file their 2022 federal income tax return next year.
Here are a few facts that can help taxpayers with their year-round tax planning:
Courtesy of the Internal Revenue Service
Adjusted Gross Income, or AGI, is a taxpayer’s total gross income minus specific deductions that can reduce the taxpayer’s income before calculating tax owed. AGI is the starting point for calculating taxes and determining a taxpayer’s eligibility for certain tax credits and deductions that can help lower their tax bill.
The standard deduction is a set dollar amount that reduces taxable income. Most taxpayers have a choice of either taking a standard deduction or itemizing their deductions and using the option that lowers their tax the most.
Properly claiming tax credits can reduce taxes owed or boost refunds.
Some tax credits, like the earned income tax credit, are refundable, which means an eligible taxpayer can get money refunded to them even if they don’t owe any taxes.
To claim a deduction or credit, taxpayers should keep records that show their eligibility for it.
Need tax assistance? Call our office at 816-524-4949 or click here to schedule a consultation.
A California man was sentenced 36 months in prison following a jury conviction in March 2022 on one count of mail fraud and one count of making a false representation in a bankruptcy proceeding.
According to court documents, in January 2018, Nana Baidoobonso – Iam, 69, engaged in a scheme in which he mailed an Involuntary Petition in Bankruptcy to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Kansas. The defendant signed the Involuntary Petition in Bankruptcy under the penalties of perjury and falsely claimed that an individual owed him $630,000 and owed a second person $1.26 million.
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Jay Kurland established a practice providing legal and financial advice to lottery winners. He is now being accused of deception. As the FBI began questioning his insta-millionaire clients, things were not looking good. The jackpots handed over to Jay Kurland by multiple winners seemed to be shrinking. On June 19, Kurland called his neighbor and business partner, Francis Smookler, saying his Staten Island clients were growing concerned. Kurland admitted to bad business moves but denied criminality. Kurland came to be America’s foremost lott0-winner whisperer. He was booked for morning shows and was known for thelotterylawyer.com and @lotterylawyer. In 2018, he started representing the biggest solo lottery winner of all time, a woman who’d bought a $1.5 billion ticket in South Carolina.
As Kurland accumulated more and richer clients, he started innovating to multiply clients’ money. He began dealing more in side hustles, and the list of people he worked with began to look a little different. There was Christopher Chierchio, who ran a Staten Island plumbing business and has been identified in the New York tabloids as a Genovese crime-family soldier; Greg Altieri, a wholesale jeweler turned Ponzi schemer; and Kurland’s own brother-in-law, Scott Blyer, aka DrBFixin, a cosmetic surgeon specializing in Brazilian butt lifts. The morning of August 18, 2020, saw the beginning of the end for this group, however. Kurland, Smookler, Russo, and Chierchio were booked on multiple counts of wire fraud and money laundering, accused of bilking three marquee lottery winners out of more than $100 million. Smookler and Russo were also accused of extortion. Federal prosecutors in New York laid out a scheme predicated on the trust Kurland had built with clients who were wildly unprepared for the opportunities and pitfalls of sudden wealth. Following Kurland’s investment advice, lottery winners plowed cash into high-interest lending businesses run by his associates, for which he allegedly received secret kickbacks.
Interested in speaking with an attorney? Call our office at 816-524-4949 or click here to schedule a consultation.
Missouri Governor Mike Parson recently signed a bill that will reduce the cost of World Cup tickets when the soccer tournament comes to Kansas City in 2026. The bill exempts tickets for the FIFA World Cup games from sales tax. This bill was passed as part of a bipartisan effort from government officials, private organizations, sports teams to bring the games to Kansas City.
Have tax questions? Call our office at 816-524-4949 or click here to schedule a consultation.
Compiled annually, the Dirty Dozen lists a variety of common scams that taxpayers can encounter anytime. The IRS warns taxpayers, tax professionals and financial institutions to beware of these scams. This year’s list is divided into five groups. Here’s an overview of the top twelve tax scams of 2022.
Courtesy of the Internal Revenue Service
Potentially abusive arrangements The 2022 Dirty Dozen begins with four transactions that are wrongfully promoted and will likely attract additional agency compliance efforts in the future. Those four abusive transactions involve charitable remainder annuity trusts, Maltese individual retirement arrangements, foreign captive insurance, and monetized installment sales.
Pandemic-related scams This IRS reminds taxpayers that criminals still use the COVID-19 pandemic to steal people’s money and identity with phishing emails, social media posts, phone calls, and text messages. All these efforts can lead to sensitive personal information being stolen, and scammers using this to try filing a fraudulent tax return as well as harming victims in other ways. Some of the scams people should continue to be on the lookout for include Economic Impact Payment and tax refund scams, unemployment fraud leading to inaccurate taxpayer 1099-Gs, fake employment offers on social media, and fake charities that steal taxpayers’ money.
Offer in Compromise “mills” Offer in Compromise or OIC “mills,” make outlandish claims, usually in local advertising, about how they can settle a person’s tax debt for pennies on the dollar. Often, the reality is that taxpayers pay the OIC mill a fee to get the same deal they could have gotten on their own by working directly with the IRS. These “mills” are a problem all year long, but they tend to be more visible right after the filing season ends and taxpayers are trying to resolve their tax issues perhaps after receiving a balance due notice in the mail.
Suspicious communications Every form of suspicious communication is designed to trick, surprise, or scare someone into responding before thinking. Criminals use a variety of communications to lure potential victims. The IRS warns taxpayers to be on the lookout for suspicious activity across four common forms of communication: email, social media, telephone, and text messages. Victims are tricked into providing sensitive personal financial information, money, or other information. This information can be used to file false tax returns and tap into financial accounts, among other schemes.
Spear phishing attacks Spear phishing scams target individuals or groups. Criminals try to steal client data and tax preparers’ identities to file fraudulent tax returns for refunds. Spear phishing can be tailored to attack any type of business or organization, so everyone needs to be skeptical of emails requesting financial or personal information.
A recent spear phishing email used the IRS logo and a variety of subject lines such as “Action Required: Your account has now been put on hold” to steal tax professionals’ software preparation credentials. The scam email contains a link that if clicked will send users to a website that shows the logos of several popular tax software preparation providers. Clicking on one of these logos will prompt a request for tax preparer account credentials. The IRS warns tax pros not to respond or take any of the steps outlined in the email. The IRS has observed similar spear phishing emails claiming to be from “tax preparation application providers.”
The list is not a legal document or a literal listing of agency enforcement priorities. It is designed to raise awareness among a variety of audiences that may not always be aware of developments involving tax administration.
Need tax help? Call our office at 816-524-4949 or click here to schedule a consultation.
Former Toys ‘R’ Us executives are set to stand trial over allegations that they misled suppliers about the retailer’s dismal financial condition while the company struggled to stay afloat in bankruptcy and then stiffed them on over $600 million of bills. Bankruptcy Judge Keith Phillips rejected a request from the former executives to throw out the creditor claims saying a trial should go forward. The former directors and officers have so far denied wrongdoing.
According to the judge, open questions include whether the retailer was already insolvent when it paid nearly $18 million to its private-equity backers — Bain Capital, KKR & Co. and Vornado Realty Trust — between 2014 and 2017. The creditors also assert that millions of dollars of bonuses paid to over 100 Toys ‘R’ Us executives and managers just before the company’s 2017 bankruptcy demonstrate a breach of the former executives’ fiduciary duty. The largest of these bonuses–$2.8 million–went to former CEO David Brandon. A committee of low-ranking creditors negotiated a reduction in the bonus amounts, according to court documents.
Considering bankruptcy? Call our office at 816-524-4949 or click here to schedule a consultation to determine your options.
The elements of resisting arrest include that defendant reasonably should have known that a police officer was making an arrest, of which there was no evidence, because police officers approached defendant bicyclist without lights and without siren. Failure to raise an objection during voir dire (a preliminary examination of a witness or a juror by a judge or counsel.) leaves only plain error review, and appellant failed to describe plain error in his argument, because appellant did not allege any effect on the outcome.
Many people take up gig work on a part-time or full-time basis, often through a digital platform like an app or website. Gig work, such driving a car for booked rides, selling goods online, renting out property, or providing other on-demand work, is taxable and must be reported as income on the worker’s tax return.
Here are some things gig workers should know to stay on top of their tax responsibilities:
Gig work is taxable:
Earnings from gig economy work is taxable, regardless of whether an individual receives information returns. The reporting requirement for issuance of Form 1099-K changed for payments received in 2022 to totals exceeding $600, regardless of the total number of transactions. This means some gig workers will now receive an information return. This is true even if the work is full-time or part-time.
If they are self-employed, gig workers must pay all their Social Security and Medicare taxes on their income from the gig activity
Proper worker classification:
While providing gig economy services, it is important that the taxpayer is correctly classified.
This means the business, or the platform, must determine whether the individual providing the services is an employee or independent contractor.
Taxpayers can use the worker classification page on IRS.gov to see how they should be classified.
Independent contractors may be able to deduct business expenses, depending on tax limits and rules. It is important for taxpayers to keep records of their business expenses.
Courtesy of the Internal Revenue Service
Paying the right amount of taxes throughout the year:
An employer typically withholds income taxes from their employees’ pay to help cover income taxes their employees owe.
Gig economy workers who aren’t considered employees have two ways to cover their income taxes:
Submit a new Form W-4 to their employer to have more income taxes withheld from their paycheck if they have another job as an employee.
Make quarterly estimated tax payments to help pay their income taxes throughout the year, including self-employment tax.
The Gig Economy Tax Center on IRS.gov answers questions and helps gig economy taxpayers understand their tax responsibilities.
Still need help? Call our office at 816-524-4949 or click here to schedule a consultation.
