In Business

This abandoned industrial building at 2800 E. Dunes Highway in Gary is one of approximately $10 million in properties that Andrew L. Young, an Illinois investor, owns in Gary and surrounding areas. (Photograph by Dan Shelton/The Times.)

Most Northwest Indiana residents line up and pay their taxes annually without a whimper.

The few thousand who put up a fight must play by the taxing authority’s rules—troop to its office, fill out its paperwork and plead their case to its hearing officers.

Not Andrew L. Young.
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Tax preparer Dorothy Colvin organizes receipts at Precise Accounting and Tax Service in Hammond. Recent changes in the tax law have delaying the filing of individual tax returns with itemized deductions. (Photograph by Jon L. Hendricks/The Times.)

Recent changes in the tax law delaying filing of individual tax returns with itemized deductions are affecting local tax preparation services as well as their clients.

CPA Robert Clausing, of the Lansing accounting firm of Robert Clausing & Associates, said the delay would be at best, “an inconvenience.”

“We will obviously not be able to file the returns as early as we like,” Clausing said. “We’ll have to hold on to the forms until the government programs are ready to handle them for electronic filing.”
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Add that big packet of tax forms arriving in your mailbox just after New Year’s Day to the list of items replaced by technology.

The Indiana Department of Revenue announced Wednesday it will no longer mail state income tax forms to Hoosier households.

“Looking at that from a cost-effective standpoint we’re not going to do that,” said Stephanie McFarland, revenue department spokeswoman.
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Lake County taxpayers have reason to be thankful this holiday season, Councilman Larry Blanchard said.

The state-imposed freeze on the property tax levy—the total amount of taxes local and county government can collect—spared the businesses and homeowners from having to pay an additional $43 million this year, according to Blanchard’s calculations.

He said the freeze is projected to produce even more savings—$65 million—in the new year.
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Are you still waiting for a federal tax refund payment?

The Internal Revenue Service wants to send it and has tools to help taxpayers find money owed to them.

If a refund check is returned to the IRS as undelivered, taxpayers can update their mailing addresses with the “Where’s My Refund?” tool on irs.gov. The tool also enables taxpayers to check the status of their refunds.
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From the BusINess inbox—The BusINess editors are committed to keeping you informed about the latest news in NWI. Here’s today’s submission from Winston & Strawn LLP:

Winston & Strawn LLP announced last week that veteran federal tax attorneys, Daniel A. Dumezich and Gary S. Colton, Jr., have joined the firm’s Chicago office as partners.

For more than two decades, Dumezich has represented numerous individuals and companies, including international financial institutions and public accounting firms, in complex tax controversies before the Internal Revenue Service and various state taxing authorities. He will head Winston & Strawn’s highly-regarded Federal Tax Controversy Practice. Colton is likewise experienced in all aspects of tax controversy work, ranging from IRS examinations through administrative appeals and litigation. Both join the firm from Mayer Brown.
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The Indiana Department of Revenue will start mailing more than 80,000 tax bills to residents throughout the state Friday. The tax bills are for Hoosiers who owe individual income tax from the past filing season, but have not yet paid their tax bills to date.

“This is customary for us to issue the tax bills this time of year,” said Department of Revenue Commissioner John Eckart in a news release. The agency said the bills being issued this month total more than $59.4 million.

Unpaid bills by the due date could convert into tax warrants and be turned over to the county sheriff or a professional collection agency, which is allowed by law. Both county sheriffs and professional collection agencies have the option to levy bank accounts, garnish wages or even auction off personal property in an effort to collect on unpaid tax debts that have converted to warrants.
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Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it’s simply somebody else’s problem.

About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That’s according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization.

Most people still are required to file returns by the April 15 deadline. The penalty for skipping it is limited to the amount of taxes owed, but it’s still almost always better to file: That’s the only way to get a refund of all the income taxes withheld by employers.
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Families in Northwest Indiana making less than $49,000 annually are eligible to have their state and federal tax returns prepared for free and filed through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program at the Indiana University Northwest School of Business and Economics.

VITA sessions will be held on Fridays from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. in the Dunes Medical/Professional Building, located on the IU Northwest campus at 3400 Broadway in Gary. Upcoming sessions are scheduled Friday and April 9.

Business and accounting students at IU Northwest are trained by faculty members and IRS representatives to prepare and file the electronic tax returns.

For more information, or to make an appointment, contact the IU Northwest School of Business and Economics at 219.980.6552. Walk-ins are also welcome during VITA session hours.

Small business owners who compile their own income tax returns can find themselves falling into some common quicksand pits. The mistakes can be costly if they raise a company’s tax bill unnecessarily or subject it to penalties and interest in the future.

Some of the problems are mechanical in nature, such as not filling out the right forms. Others are more strategic, including not considering how the deductions you take on your 2009 return might affect your taxes in future years.

Other mistakes are the result of owners not being well informed about the tax laws and the requirements they can impose, for example, on an owner’s salary or the way employees are classified.
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