The straight line

For the past 46 years, Dan Gardiner has managed his own firm, and we have all truly benefited from his leadership. But 46 years is quite a while, so Dan has decided to start keeping limited office hours. He recently announced that effective January 1, 2011, he is stepping down in his role as managing partner of Gardiner Thomsen.

We would like to remind our clients of the importance of the new W-9 rules set into effect by recent tax legislation. We cannot stress enough that your attention to this new rule is crucial.

We have recently received verbal notification from the IRS that all amended returns which have been filed to claim the increased section 199 deduction will be disallowed, and to look for formal written notification of this decision by the end of September. Our hope is that the IRS will be specific as to why these amended returns have been disallowed, so that we will be able to challenge the veracity of the IRS action.

We would like to inform you of some important points to keep in mind if you plan on allocating some or all of your patronage sourced section 199 deduction to your members.

Recently, the IRS began sending out notices related to tax year 2008 1099 forms. These notices detail problems with 1099 forms that our clients have filed, including incorrect or missing FEIN’s, incorrect names on the 1099’s, and other issues. Generally, a penalty for each occurrence is imposed, which could potentially total thousands of dollars for the client.

The red flags rule may actually go into affect on December 31, 2010. The Rule was originally supposed to become effective on January 1, 2008, with full compliance required by November 1, 2008. The FTC or Congress has delayed enforcing the Rule a couple of times in the last two years.