Addressing IRS Notices

Below is a sample of a notice I might receive from a taxpayer regarding their receipt of an IRS Tax notice detailing their concerns and questions. Addressing IRS notices and payroll tax issues are the bane for many taxpayers and the hiring of a competent payroll service is your best bet to ensure that you can work on your business rather than getting mired down in burdensome administrative details.

I have a question about the attached IRS penalty letter I received today. It says that there is an Informational Return for 2008 that was not filed in a timely manner. I don't have a clue what this could be about or if it's some kind of mistake. When you amended our 2008 and 2007 S Corp. returns, was there any informational return that need to be sent also, such as a W-2/W-3 or something else?

If none was required with the amended return, should I contact who did the original 2008 return? And what other informational returns could be involved, other than a W-2/W-3 for our salary? I never got a copy of the W-3 from our prior accountant. All he gave me was a W-2 to file with our personal return. I think he also sent out all the 1099s that year, so could the 1096 form also be the late informational return? Please tell me anything you can about what would cause this problem.

Payroll is the largest and most burdensome administrative responsibility for a business owner. Whether you have one employee or a thousand, both the IRS and your state has a myriad of payroll reports and deadlines for which you are required to complete. Unfortunately there is not a one-stop shop to pay and report all of the varying deadlines and taxes. However, there is a solution that makes the reporting of payroll dramatically more seamless than if you strive to go it on your own.
The easy part of preparing a payroll is the actual paycheck itself, but that is where the simplicity stops and the difficulty begins as there are a dramatic list of reports and varying deadlines to meet. To this end I have recapped below some of the reports and their significance. Here is the letter of response I forwarded:

The letter you forwarded indicates that it is for a Civil Penalty which typically indicates payroll taxes returns. Might I suggest you first review all of your 2008 payroll tax returns to see if they were all timely filed and paid. As it is in your best interest to always to hire an Atlanta Payroll Service to handle all of your payroll needs as you could then forward this notice for their review and for them to both resolve and to pay if indeed they caused the penalty. To discover about payroll tax reports and their tax deadlines visit http://www.hiscpa.com/payroll.html

To learn more about tax entities and the taxation thereof visit http://www.hiscpa.com/article2.html  There you will also discover a wide host of resources for Entrepreneurs.

John Dillard is an Christian Speaker/Author and Certified Public Accountant in Duluth, GA. To See how he takes Christ along with him to work visit http://www.hiscpa.com/  and for his latest book Overcoming Life's 9/11's: Job's Journey and a Voice of One: Nehemiah's Prayer visit http://www.john-dillard.com/  or call John Dillard CPA today at 770.814.9304 (All Rights Reserved) Dare to Attempt Something so Great for the Kingdom of God that it is doomed to failure, lest Christ be in it!