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Revenooer Rants: Extension deadline looms

Jeff Quinn
Jeff Quinn

Those of you who have been goofing off all summer, after having placed your 2012 tax return on extension, need to get busy — and fast.

That extension runs out on October 15 — and even if you still owe Uncle some dough, but perhaps can’t pay right now, it’s still prudent to file the return anyway. The late filing penalty is 5 percen per month (of any unpaid balance).

And speaking of fiscal matters, our old friend TIGTA (Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration) has been at it again — now finding that the Revenooers just seem to have “lost track” of something like $67 million originally earmarked for Obamacare implementation.



Seems the “Health Insurance Reform Implementation Fund” (HIRIF) was part of the increasingly infamous Obamacare legislation, and destined to provide the IRS funds to enforce the tax provisions of the health care law.

The fund, totaling about $1 billion, actually, was intended to allow the Revenooers to enforce the something like 50 tax provisions of the legislation.



Among other things, TIGTA found 38 IRS employees who charged travel expenses to HIRIF, while their salaries were charged elsewhere (presumably indicating that these folks had nothing to do with Obamacare enforcement.)

And while we’re on the subject of government “now you see it, now you don’t” activities when it comes to fiscal accountability, CNBC recently reported that a recent GAO report says that the Federal government may have paid $1.29 billion in Social Security disability benefits to 36,000 folks who had too much income from work to qualify.

With egg on its collective face, Social Security nonetheless observes that the agency had a “more than 99 percent accuracy rate” for paying disability benefits.

Nice. Nobody will miss the $1.29 billion, now will they?

So, with all of the government shenanigans (including those of the states) related to your money, is it any wonder that a recent Rasmussen Reports survey finds that 17 percent of American adults say they would vote for their section of their state to actually secede and form a new state? Or that 21 percent of we and thee think states have the right to actually leave the United States and form an independent country?

Not too far-fetched, in our view, given all of the recent clowning around in D.C.

CONSULT YOUR TAX ADVISOR – This article contains general information about various tax matters. You should consult your CPA regarding the implications to your own particular situation. Jeff Quinn is a shareholder in Ashley Quinn, CPAs & Consultants, Ltd., with offices in Incline Village and Reno. He can be reached at 831-7288, welcomes comments at jquinn@ashleyquinncpas.com, and invites readers to consider his other commentary at http://blog.nolo.com/taxes.


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