COMPANY NEWS

From: Aaron Weinberger
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 11:48 AM
To: Accountants
Subject: Change in wage reporting due date

Change in wage reporting and annual withholding tax reconciliation due date

Beginning with the last withholding tax quarter of 2009, employers must submit wage reporting information for the last calendar quarter and the annual withholding tax reconciliation information on or before January 31 of each year . Under prior law, this information was due no later than February 28 of each year.

Requirement to make sales tax electronic records available and new penalties related to sales tax record keeping

Persons who elect to maintain sales tax records in an electronic format are required to make the electronic records available and accessible to the Tax Department, even if the records are also maintained in a hard copy format.

In addition, new penalties apply to persons required to keep sales tax records. These new penalties will now be imposed for the reasons and in the amounts described as follows:

·          If a person fails to maintain sales tax records or make them available to the Tax Department, the penalty is up to $1,000 for the first quarter or part thereof for which the failure occurs and up to $5,000 for each subsequent quarter or part thereof for which the failure occurs. This penalty applies to sales tax quarterly periods beginning on and after June 1, 2009.

·          If a person fails to present or make available sales tax records for the Tax Department's review in a form that can be audited, the penalty is up to $1,000 for each quarter or part thereof for which the failure occurs. This failure occurs when the records presented lack sufficient organization or are otherwise inadequate to permit direct reconciliation of the receipts, invoices or other source documents with the entries for the quarterly period in the books and records and on the sales tax returns of that person. This penalty applies even if these records, if reorganized, are adequate to verify credits, receipts, and the taxability of items and to perform a complete audit. This penalty took effect on April 7, 2009.

·          If a person's records are maintained in an electronic format, and the person fails to make the electronic records available and accessible for review by the Tax Department, a penalty of up to $5,000 will apply for each quarter or part thereof for which the failure occurs. This penalty took effect on April 7, 2009.

The penalties described above are in addition to any other penalties applicable to sales and use taxes, but may not be imposed or collected more than once for failures for the same quarterly period or part thereof.

If a failure that resulted in any of the above described penalties being imposed was entirely due to reasonable cause and not due to willful neglect, the Tax Department will waive the penalty.

Aaron Weinberger
Padell Nadell Fine Weinberger LLP
59 Maiden Lane
New York , NY 10038
Ph 212-424-9545
Fax 212-262-2769

Any tax advice contained in this written or electronic communication (including attachments) was not intended or written to be used to avoid any penalty imposed by a taxing authority, nor may the user/recipient of this communication use this written tax advice for that purpose.  Please contact us with any questions regarding this notice.

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