| A.
R. Kakhsaz Company
an accountancy corporation
Member
American Institute of
Certified Public Accountants
International associates:
Tavana & Co.
Chartered Accountants
Toronto, Canada
Tel.416-229-2221
|
AT THE HEART OF
THE ACCOUNTING PROFESSION is independence: 73% of total fees paid to
accounting firms last year by big U.S. companies were for non-accounting
and auditing services. That's widely believed to be inherently
compromising the quality of auditing the financial statements of the same
companies by the same accounting firms who must remain independent with
respect to the companies who's financial statements they audit. THE
U.S. TAX-LAW IS AN ABOMINATION and a "drag on our ability to
create jobs," says Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil. Estimates of
how much taxpayers spend on compliance range from $70 billion to $125
billion a year. "That's a lot of lawyers and accountants,"
he says. "Apologies to lawyers and accountants, but it would be
great to have the need for a federal retraining program to convert you
into product engineers."
ADVERTISING PRESCRIPTION DRUGS HAVE
proved to be powerful. Patients who seek specific
drugs from doctors often get them.
H & R BLOCK's average fee per client is up 9% to
$117.03. Block's fees for tax preparation from January through March
2002 surged 12% from the year before to $1.43 billion.
THE NEW TAX LAW ENACTED MARCH 9 GIVES teachers a
special deduction of as much as $250 a year for unreimbursed expenses for
classroom materials.
TWO MILLION AMERICANS overpay their taxes, finds a study by the
U.S. General Accounting Office, a congressional investigative
agency. Those people automatically choose the "standard
deduction," a flat amount based on their filing status, rather than
itemizing when doing their income-tax returns. The overpayments
range from $500 to more than $2000 for each income-tax filer. Why
are so many people shooting themselves in the foot? Several
explanations are likely: complexity of the tax-law, fear of the IRS, sheer
neglect and laziness, and incompetent tax preparers as 50% of the returns
of those overpaying individuals are prepared by third-party preparers.
You may fix such mistakes, generally, by filing an amended return.
IRS EMPLOYEES CONTINUE to browse through taxpayers' returns
without authorization. That's despite repeated efforts over the
years to remind then that it's illegal to do that.
"Unfortunately browsing still happens," says a former IRS
Commissioner.
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DAVID KEENER, a California criminal defense lawyer, is 60
years old. He pleaded guilty in U.S. district court in Los
Angeles for willfully failing to file his income tax return for
1994. He earned more than $4 million in that year. He is
facing a jail sentence and a $100,000 penalty in addition to the
taxes, interest and penalties due on the unreported 1994 income.
CALIFORNIA and ILLINOIS together accounted for 36% of the
358,000 workers at big companies laid off in the fourth quarter
2000.
BY NEXT YEAR UPWARD PRESSURE ON PRICES could be widespread
enough to generate worries about inflation. The U.S.
consumer-price index, the most closely watched measure of inflation,
increased by 0.2% (0.3% when excluding energy and food prices) in
February. While those are low levels, they were higher than
economists expected.
HE GOT A $300,000 TICKET FOR SPEEDING: Mr. Anssi Vanjoki
was doing 46.5 mp in a 30-mph zone in Helsinki, Finland where
traffic fines are based not just on the severity of the offence, but
on the offender's income. Mr. Vanjoki is a senior executive of
Nokia, the world's largest cell phone maker. His fine was assessed
on a 1999 income of $5.2 million. Sweden, Denmark and Germany
have similar laws but they set a ceiling - $98 in Sweden, for
example.
THE IRS "WILL DEVOTE MORE RESOURCES TO stop the
overall declining audit rates and dedicate more resources to
auditing partnerships and other pass-through entities,"
says the IRS Commissioner.
A BRITISH WOMAN WAS DIAGNOSED IN FLORIDA with
a brain disorder linked to mad-cow disease. She has spent most
of her life in the United Kingdom.
the Generalist, a one-page monthly publication of
the accounting firm A.R. Kakhsaz Company, is in its seventh
year of providing information, presented fairly and accurately, from
sources we can depend upon and trust.
TO CONTACT ALI KAKHSAZ e-mail ali@arkcpa.com
WE SEE
MORE IN NUMBERS than just numbers…
Ali R. Kakhsaz, CPA, MAcc
www.arkpca.com
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