Did you know the IRS offers tax help to small business owners through its Small Business and Self-Employed Tax Center? The tax center offers extensive resources and online tools to small businesses and the self-employed.

The IRS Small Business and Self-Employed Tax Center offers tax help resources:

• Small business forms and publications
• Employer Identification Number online application
• Employment tax information – federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare taxes, FUTA and self-employment tax
• Tax-related news that could affect your business
• Small business educational events
• IRS videos for small businesses
• A-Z Index for Business – find information fast using the A-Z listing

The site provides tax tips and important information available for all stages of owning a business. Whether you’re starting, operating, or closing a business, visit the site for federal income tax help

Other tax tips and resources available on the IRS small business website include a virtual small business tax workshop, video and audio presentations, a guide to IRS audits, and a tax calendar designed for small business taxpayers.

The IRS Video Portal:
Tax Questions? Learn about tax topics through video and audio presentations on the IRS Video Portal. The video portal contains archived versions of live panel discussions, archived webinars, video clips, and audio archives of national phone forums.

IRS Audits Video Series:
“Your Guide to an IRS Audit” takes the viewer through the steps of an audit from notification to closing. The video series is composed of scenarios that demonstrate the stages of each type of audit: correspondence, office and field. The scenarios address issues that are common to audits of small businesses.

Virtual Small Business Tax Workshop:
The IRS Virtual Small Business Tax Workshop is an interactive resource to help small business owners learn about their federal tax rights and responsibilities. The workshop contains nine stand-alone lessons that can be selected and viewed in any sequence. The workshop is available online 24 hours a day, seven days a week from any computer. It can also be ordered on CD.

Tax Calendar for Small Business Taxpayers:
The Tax Calendar for Small Businesses and Self-Employed – Publication 1518 – is available online or as a printable PDF file. This 12-month calendar is filled with information on general business taxes, IRS and Social Security Administration customer assistance, electronic filing and paying options, retirement plans, business publications and forms, and common tax filing dates. Each page highlights different tax issues and tips that may be relevant to small-business owners, with room on each month to add notes, state tax dates or business appointments. You can also download the tax events into your calendar or subscribe to the tax calendar events. The calendar provides the small business owner with a ready resource for meeting their tax obligations.

Small business owners and the self-employed should take advantage of the tax tips and tax help provided by the IRS small business website.

Source: irs.gov

According to ABC News in Denver, Colorado, E-mails and letters that appear to be from government agencies are among the latest round of scams by criminals hoping to obtain money or personal information from victims.

“It was very convincing. It had an official IRS letterhead,” said Craig Schroetlin, pastor of Daystar Church in Aurora.

The e-mail Schroetlin received looked official because it was copied almost verbatim from the Internal Revenue Service Web site.

“It had to do with the tax incentive checks President Bush had signed,” he said.

Schroetlin had already received his tax incentive, but said the e-mail was so convincing it made him think twice.

“It was extremely official looking,” he said.

Had Schroetlin clicked on the alleged IRS link contained in the e-mail, it would have led him to forms the scammers use to collect personal information from their victims.

“It’s people preying on the needy, on the uninformed,” he said.

Wanda Potthoff was almost scammed at work.

“It looked like a secretary of state document, that it had come from them,” she said, “My first reaction was, ‘Why do I have to pay $150?’ ”

A company calling itself Colorado Corporate Compliance tells small business owners they need to file a report and pay a fee or face consequences from the Secretary Of State’s office.

“I think if I hadn’t already filed the corporate report that year I might have gone ahead and done it,” Potthoff said.

Call7 tracked the address provided for the phony company and found it lead to a UPS store in Denver, where the would-be scammers kept a post office box.

“It makes me angry that people are trying to take advantage of people just to line their own pockets,” Potthoff said.

Fraud expert Mason Finks said scammers blend real elements into their phony documents to further confuse consumers and turn them into victims.

“The only difference is this half line of text,” said Finks comparing a phony IRS e-mail to a legitimate one.

“Each of those was linked to a real portion of the IRS Web site,” he said.

Finks has recently seen phony e-mails from the FBI and other government agencies.

“Seldom if ever will a government agency send you an e-mail saying you need provide information or you’ve won something. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s done through the mail,” Finks said.

He also pointed out another twist- scammers spoofing caller I.D.

Finks said in a recent scam the callers paid for a third-party service to change their caller I.D. to read “Douglas County Government.”

He said the caller told the potential victim a jury summons had been returned and that they needed the person to verify all their contact information.

Finks said consumers should always be suspicious and verify every request with the agency themselves or with a local law enforcement agency before taking any action.

The bottom line is this:  The IRS will never ask for payment via an e-mail – PERIOD!

For more information on fraud prevention or to report a scam contact the irs or logon to www.irs.gov

The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 contains two provisions that provide tax benefits for businesses. The first provision increases the limit up to which a business can expense property purchased and placed in service during its 2008 tax year. The second provision provides an additional 50 percent special depreciation allowance for property acquired and placed in service during calendar year 2008.

Unlike the economic stimulus payments that millions of individuals have already received, the tax benefits for businesses are not automatic; businesses must act to take advantage of the new provisions by purchasing qualifying property.

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that businesses stand to lower their 2008 tax bills by roughly $45 billion as a result of the two business provisions in the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008; these provisions accelerate into 2008 the tax benefits that otherwise would not have been available until future years.

The following are some details about these two key tax benefits:

Section 179 Expensing
In general, section 179 provides that, instead of depreciating property, a business with a sufficiently small amount of annual property purchases may choose to expense the cost of the property. For taxable years beginning in 2008, the Economic Stimulus Act increased the section 179 expensing limit allowing more property to be currently expensed.
The Economic Stimulus Act increased the maximum section 179 expense deduction to $250,000 for qualified section 179 property that is placed in service in tax years that begin in 2008. This is a 95 percent increase from the previous limitation of $128,000.
The Economic Stimulus Act also increased the total amount of qualifying property a taxpayer may purchase before the section 179 expensing limit begins to be reduced. Under the new law, the $250,000 deduction amount is reduced only when a business acquires more than $800,000 of qualifying property.  Prior to changes made by the Economic Stimulus Act, the reduction began when a business acquired more than $510,000 of qualifying property.
The new law does not alter the section 179 expense limit for sport utility vehicles, which remains at $25,000.
More than 4.5 million small businesses claimed the section 179 expense deduction for tax year 2005, the most recent year for which this information is available. These businesses placed almost $44 billion of section 179 property in service in 2005 and claimed related deductions of approximately $41 billion (data derived from Depreciation and Amortization forms filed with Forms 1040).

Special Depreciation Allowance
The Economic Stimulus Act also provided a 50 percent special depreciation allowance for property acquired and placed in service during 2008.  Depreciation is an income tax deduction that allows a taxpayer to recover the cost or other basis of certain property over several years. It is an annual allowance for the wear and tear, deterioration or obsolescence of the property.
Under the new law, a taxpayer is entitled to depreciate 50 percent of the adjusted basis (after subtracting any section 179 deduction taken on that property) of qualified property during the year the property is placed in service.  For example, if the taxpayer purchased and placed in service in 2008 a single piece of property at a cost of $450,000 that qualified for section 179 expensing and the 50 percent special depreciation allowance, $250,000 of the cost could be immediately expensed (under section 179 ) and the remaining $200,000 of adjusted basis would be available for the 50 percent special depreciation allowance. The taxpayer would also be permitted to take regular depreciation on the remaining $100,000 of adjusted basis during that year. This is similar to the special depreciation allowance that was previously available for certain property placed in service generally before Jan. 1, 2005, often referred to as “bonus depreciation.”
The types of property that qualify for the 50 percent special depreciation allowance are section 168 property with a recovery period of 20 years or less, off-the-shelf computer software, water utility property and qualified leasehold improvement property.
To qualify for the 50 percent special depreciation allowance, a taxpayer must meet all of the following tests:
The taxpayer must have acquired the property after December 31, 2007, and before Jan. 1, 2009. If a binding contract to acquire the property existed before Jan. 1, 2008, the property does not qualify for the special depreciation allowance.
The property must be placed in service before Jan. 1, 2009 (before Jan. 1, 2010, for certain transportation property and certain property with a long productions period).
The original use of the property must begin with the taxpayer after Dec. 31, 2007.  In other words, the property must be “new” property.
Prior to the enactment of the Economic Stimulus Act the total depreciation amount (including the section 179 deduction) a business could deduct for a passenger automobile was $2,960. The Economic Stimulus Act increased this limitation by $8,000. Therefore, the maximum limit is increased to $10,960 for automobiles for which the special bonus depreciation allowance is claimed.
Prior to the enactment of the Economic Stimulus Act, the total depreciation amount (including the section 179 deduction) a business could deduct for a truck or van used in a business and first placed in service in 2008 was $3,160. The Economic Stimulus Act increased this limitation by $8,000. The new maximum limit is increased to $11,160 for trucks and vans for which the special bonus depreciation is claimed.
The Economic Stimulus Act is the most recent legislation that provides depreciation tax benefits. Previously, the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002 allowed an additional first-year depreciation deduction equal to 30 percent of the adjusted basis of qualified property for property acquired on or after Sept. 11, 2001, and generally placed in service before Jan. 1, 2005. The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 provided an additional first-year depreciation deduction equal to 50 percent of the adjusted basis of qualified property for property acquired after May 5, 2003, and generally placed in service before Jan. 1, 2005. 

For more information visit the Internal Revenue Service’s small-business and self-employed section at  www.irs.gov/businesses/small.