You should not file your tax return without Form
W-2. Also, if your employer has not sent you a copy of your W-2 yet, then
they most probably have not sent a copy to the IRS so asking the IRS for a
copy is probably not an option. Besides, if they do have a copy, a copy
would not be made available to you since it is too early in the tax year.
Your employer has until January 31, 2015 to mail your Form W-2 to you, but
has until March 2, 2015 to submit the forms to the Social Security
Administration and to the Internal Revenue Service. The good news is that
once you ask your employer for Form W-2 and if he refuses, you can file a
substitute form to report your wages to the Internal Revenue Service on Form
4852. You have to allow enough mail processing time after January 31, 2015
and/or visit the employer to make your request before you can file Form
4852. The point is that you must wait until after January 31, 2015 in order
to file your substitute wage form. Form 4852 is not a form you would file on
January 7th, for example.
In this course we will be
reviewing some basic tax preparation concepts regarding income, deductions
and credits on your tax return. One of these basic tax preparation items is
interest income. When you receive interest income as a nominee, it
means that the income is in your name, but it actually belongs
to someone else.
You are responsible to report
any interest income on your tax return. Your bank is normally only obligated
to send you an interest statement if the interest amount is over $10.
However, this does not mean that you are not obligated to report your
interest if it is less than $10 or if your bank did not send you a statement
at the end of the year. If you received a statement as a nominee of
the interest received, the Internal Revenue Service will hold you
responsible to report this income on your tax return or name you as the
owner of such interest income if you don't file the proper paperwork to let
them know who is the real owner. You should not just choose whomever you
want as the owner of this interest income, because the person to whom you
report the interest income will be obligated to report it on their own tax
return if they have a filing requirement.
Another basic income item that
that you need to know about in this course is unemployment compensation. You
must report on your tax return unemployment
compensation that you receive that is the total unemployment
compensation paid to you in 2014.
It was good while it lasted.
Unemployment compensation was taxable only if the amount was over $2,400.
This meant that anything up to $2,400 was completely tax free. Qualifying
for unemployment compensation has always been due to contributions to a
government unemployment compensation fund program usually through your state
employment development department. Please do not include as supplemental
unemployment compensation received from a company-financed fund but rather
include them as wages subject to tax withholding and possibly subject to
social security and Medicare taxes.
Many changes have occurred since Congress enacted
the first income tax law. In 1862, Congress enacted the nation's first
income tax law in order to support the Civil War effort.
It was in 1862 that the office
of Commissioner of the Internal Revenue was established. This individual was
given the power to enforce the tax laws. There has not been too much change
to this power to now.
