Did you receive an Ohio Individual Income Tax Failure to File notice (ITDQ0009) from the Ohio Department of Taxation (ODT) advising you that they did not receive an Ohio Individual Income tax return? 

As a result of the State of Ohio paying off its unemployment compensation debt to the federal government, Ohio employers will reap the benefit of lower Federal Unemployment Tax they pay this coming January.  According to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, the state paid the remaining balance of nearly $218 million to satisfy its obligation to the federal government earlier this year.

(Bloomberg) An Obama administration policy that would have given more white-collar workers overtime starting Dec. 1 was blocked nationwide by a federal judge in Texas. The decision Tuesday is a victory for 21 states and dozens of business groups that sued, complaining the new rule would increase government costs in their states by $115 million next year alone and would put private employers on the hook for millions of dollars more, possibly leading to layoffs.

Federal, state and local authorities have indicted dozens of people and businesses in the U.S. and India accused of impersonating Internal Revenue Service employees demanding money from innocent taxpayers in the U.S.

Related: Follow our Fraud & Scam blogs

Be proactive! On December 1, 2016, the minimum salary threshold for the FLSA's white-collar exemptions increases to an annual $47,476.

This more-than doubling of the salary test is the biggest change to the FLSA in decades, and will add an approximate 4.2 million employees to the ranks of the non-exempt, to whom you must pay overtime if they work more than 40 hours in a week.

As a result of this regulation, businesses will need to start tracking hours for exempt salaried employees who are at or below the $47,476 threshold.

If you have questions about this or other overtime rules and your business, contact any of our professionals at 216.831.0733 or info@zinnerco.com. We're ready to start the conversation. 

 

Each year, many people get a larger refund than they expect. Some find they owe a lot more tax than they thought they would. If this has happened to you, review your situation to prevent a tax surprise. Did you marry? Have a child? Change in income? Life events can have a major impact on your taxes. Bring the taxes you pay closer to the amount you owe. Here are some tips to help you come up with a plan:

Have you been notified by the IRS? You may want to think twice before responding to the call, email or letter.

The work of criminals knows no boundaries. Unfortunatley, this time of year brings another wave of antics to the forefront as the criminal will use various ploys to trick taxpayers into providing sensitive or personal identification information by posing as the IRS. 

Aggressive and threatening phone calls by criminals impersonating IRS agents remain a major threat to taxpayers, but now the IRS is receiving new reports of scammers calling under the guise of verifying tax return information over the phone.

You may discover you made a mistake on your tax return. You can file an amended return if you need to fix an error. You can also amend your tax return to claim a tax credit or deduction.

Here are 10 tips from the IRS on amending your return:

 The Department of Labor has finalized new overtime rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act, ending months of speculation about how the proposal, which was introduced last July, would affect employers.