We continue to receive calls from clients concerning telephone callers identifying themselves as being from the Internal Revenue Service, and demanding checking account or credit card information to pay outstanding tax balances and penalties. The callers are very aggressive, claiming that a warrant is outstanding for the individual’s arrest, or that law enforcement will be notified if payment is not Read More »
The IRS has provided tips and reminders to individuals and businesses making year-end gifts to charity. They highlighted the rules for claiming deductions for charitable contributions of clothing and household items along with the guidelines for monetary donations. Clothing and Household Items The IRS reminded taxpayers that donors must get a written acknowledgment from the charity for all gifts of Read More »
For decades, one of the most popular and effective methods to transfer family wealth to younger generations was through Family Limited Partnerships (FLP). Parents would set up an FLP and contribute assets, such as real property, to the FLP. They would then make gifts of minority interests in the Limited Partnership to their children and grandchildren. Since a minority interest Read More »
Sobul, Primes & Schenkel is excited and proud its newest principal, Mark Umemoto, exemplifies the spirit of community service that we cherish at SPS. Mark is an active member in the networking organization, AthletesTouch (www.athletestouch.co). AthletesTouch is a collective of over 300 former college and professional athletes who work together to grow and succeed in the business world. Mark played Read More »
In our last newsletter, we highlighted a telephone scam where callers, claiming to represent the U.S. Treasury or the Internal Revenue Service, are calling individuals and aggressively demanding immediate payment of “taxes” that are owed. The caller will claim that a warrant is already outstanding for the individual’s arrest, or that law enforcement will be notified if payment is not Read More »
Today’s advanced technology makes it easier than ever for criminals to fraudulently replicate your checks. Individuals generally have 30 days from the receipt of their monthly bank statement to notify the bank of suspicious activity in their account. Typically, the bank offers free protection from fraudulent activity, and will happily reverse the transactions to keep their customers’ accounts secure. But Read More »
After a busy tax season, we at Sobul, Primes and Schenkel always like to do something special for the staff, to reward them for the long hours that they have put in over the last few months. What better way to blow off some steam than a trip to Las Vegas! On Sunday, April 19th, the SPS staff, all 25 Read More »
Put the freeze on your info Not too many years ago, the only people worrying about protecting their identities were Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne. Now it’s a concern for everyone. Unfortunately, identity theft is a multi-billion dollar industry. The Federal Trade Commission estimates that as many as 9 million Americans have their identity stolen each year. Thieves are very Read More »
In the last SPS newsletter we discussed ways that we can protect ourselves when using services such as Dropbox “in the cloud”. But how is the cloud being used by SPS? And more importantly, what’s our accounting firm doing to protect our sensitive data? “The way that we use the cloud at SPS is for access to the Client Portal,” Read More »
For plan years beginning after 2013, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) institutes so-called market reform provisions that place a whole host of new restrictions on group health plans. The penalty for violating the market reform restrictions is a punitive $100-per-day, per-employee penalty, or $36,500 per-employee, per-year. With a limited exception, these new market reform provisions significantly restrict an employer’s ability Read More »