WASHINGTON,  D.C. (SEPTEMBER 13, 2013) 
BY  MICHAEL COHN

The Internal Revenue Service said Friday that approximately 4,000 plan sponsors
received erroneous penalty notices.
The  erroneous notices were dated between July 28 and Aug. 26, 2013. The IRS
mistakenly sent out the CP  283C, Notice of Balance Due for Incomplete/Late Penalties,
for the Form  8955-SSA, Annual Registration Statement Identifying Separated
Participants with Deferred Vested Benefits to thousands of businesses. The
agency has now fixed the problem and alerted the recipients of the erroneous
notices.
“We  corrected the programming error that generated the notices and abated the
erroneous penalties,” the IRS said in an email to employee benefit plan
professionals. “We also sent letters apologizing for the error; it isn’t
necessary to reply to the notice or to contact the IRS.”
However, some of  the penalty notices were correct.
“If  you received an IRS penalty notice dated between July 28 and August 26, 2013,
for an issue unrelated to this programming error, you must respond according to
the instructions in the notice,” the IRS added.

With all the discussion about the Health Care laws that are being monitored
by the IRS, just what are the tax implications for the 2013 tax year and the
2014 tax filing season? Following are three key changes you should know about
the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as it relates to your individual income tax
return. There will be additional changes going forward, so specifically, we are
looking at tax year 2013.


To start, there is only one tax law change for 2013 that could affect
taxpayers in all income groups: the change to deductible medical expenses when a
taxpayer is itemizing deductions.  Only medical expenses that exceed 10 percent
of your adjusted gross income (AGI), often referred to as the "medical expense
deduction floor", will be allowed as a deduction. (Taxpayers who are age 65 or
older in 2013 still have a medical deduction floor of 7.5 percent.)  This change
will affect all those who itemize deductions and claim a medical expense
deduction. So, if you typically claim this deduction, you're going to want to
watch for this change.


The other two changes for 2013 that come from the Affordable Care Act affect
"high income" taxpayers.  The new tax rules required an additional 0.9 percent
Medicare tax be paid when there is an earned income greater than $200,000 for
Single, Head of Household or Qualifying Widow taxpayers; $250,000 for Married
Filing Jointly taxpayers, and  $125,000 for Married Filing Separately taxpayers.
This includes wages and self-employment income.  The additional taxes will be
withheld from your pay if your wages are $200,000 or greater regardless of your
filing status.  Taxpayers affected by this change may need to adjust their
withholding or make estimated tax payments to ensure the additional taxes from
this change doesn't trigger a balance due when filing taxes next year. Income
tax withholdings can be increased by submitting an updated Form W-4 to the
employer.


If you have the additional Medicare taxes withheld and you know you won't be
subject to the additional taxes at the end of the year because you have a loss
from a small business or your total earnings are less than $250,000 on a joint
return, you must wait to file your tax return to receive a refund of any excess
tax withheld.  Employers generally are not able to refund the taxes.  IRS is
developing a new Form 8959, Additional Medicare Tax, for 2013 to calculate any
additional Medicare tax that may be owed or any excess tax paid.  The excess
taxes paid will be treated as a refundable credit when reported on the tax
return and with any remaining tax being issued as a refund after all federal tax
liability reported on the return has been satisfied.


The next change, and perhaps one of the most confusing one for high income
taxpayers, is the new 3.8 percent Medicare surtax on Net Investment income.
Taxpayers with an income of greater than $250,000 if Married Filing Jointly,
$200,000 if Head of Household, Single or a Qualifying Widow and $125,000 if
Married Filing Separately will owe the new tax on Net Investment Income (NII).
NII includes investment income such as interest, dividends, capital gains,
passive income, and rental or royalty income. The tax is assessed on the smaller
of the total NII or excess income greater than the income thresholds.  Sound
confusing? It is. Here's an example.


John is a single taxpayer with an AGI of $225,000, consisting of $180,000 in
wages, $15,000 in retirement income and $30,000 in net investment income from
interest, dividends and passive income from an S-corp.  $25,000 is subject to
the surtax which is determined by subtracting the $200,000 threshold amount from
the $225,000AGI.  When comparing the excess income of $25,000 to the net
investment income of $30,000, the excess income is lower, therefore the excess
income of $25,000 will be subject to the 3.8 percent Medicare tax


Taxpayers will determine any applicable Medicare tax on the new Form 8960,
Net Investment Income Tax--Individuals, Estates and Trusts, when they file their
income tax return.  Taxpayers whose AGI may exceed the threshold amounts and who
have investment income may need to adjust their withholding or make estimated
tax payments to ensure the new Medicare tax on investment income doesn't trigger
a balance due when filing taxes next year. 


The good news for the vast majority of taxpayers is these particular new
rules for 2013 will have very little impact. The BAD news is that if you are
impacted, you will owe more tax. Further bad news for those impacted is that for
some taxpayers, you may owe BOTH new taxes, and even more bad news, may owe
taxes at a new HIGHER tax bracket and capital gain tax rate that were introduced
in the American Tax Relief Act of
2012. The NEW highest tax bracket for very high income earners
that is 39.6 percent and a new 20 percent capital gain tax rate applies to the
same very high income taxpayers.  So possibly a quadruple whammy tax increase if
you are a very high earner with net investment income. Finally if you had
medical expenses, you could find yourself with a potential tax increase due to
the decrease in medical expense deduction from the increase in the medical
deduction floor.  But as I said, that scenario will only be for a limited
population of taxpayers, but it certainly will be a bad April 15th for them. So,
if you're affected, or even just think you're affected, talk to your tax
professional to make sure you plan accordingly.