Thursday, May 15, 2014

Balley Price Holdings:Tips for NRIs for filing tax returns│BP Holdings Tax Management

The income earned by non-resident Indians abroad is not subject to tax in India. However, if their income in the country crosses the basic exemption limit of Rs 2 lakh, they are required to file their returns. This income could be in the form of interest on deposits, rental income on property in India, etc.

Also, if NRIs carry out transactions in securities like shares and mutual funds, the capital gains are liable to tax and, hence, the return must be filed. The due date for filing returns by NRIs is 31 July.

When to file
The returns have to be filed if the income exceeds the taxable limit, or to claim refund if the tax deducted at source is more than the tax payable, or to claim the amount set off against capital losses.

Documents
The documents to be submitted include the passport to show the number of days spent outside India to qualify as an NRI. Besides this, the NRIs need to provide the statements for the demat accounts, for the transactions and bank accounts held in India, as well as the TDS certificates received from other parties.

Exemptions
The NRIs can also claim exemptions available to individuals under the Income Tax Act (unless specifically not applicable to NRIs), such as Section 80C, with respect to certain investments, payment of principal on housing loan, etc. The taxable income can be reduced by availing of these exemptions.

Filing alternatives
The NRIs can file their tax returns online on the Income Tax Department e-filing portal. Alternatively, they can use other private, paid e-filing portals to do so, or even take the help of tax advisers.

Points to note
It is not necessary for an NRI to file tax returns if the total income during the relevant financial year consists only of investment income or long-term capital gains, or both, and the tax has been deducted at source from such income.


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Wednesday, May 14, 2014

BBB Warns Consumers about Pervasive Income Tax Fraud

BP Holdings Tax Management - Despite the passing of the 2013 income tax return filing deadline, Better Business Bureau is warning consumers to keep their guard up.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued a strong warning on its website about a nationwide increase in the prevalence of “sophisticated and aggressive” telephone scams.



Victims may be told that they are entitled to substantial refunds or that they owe money to the IRS, and must pay immediately. The aim of the criminals is to get their victims to divulge personal information, or send money by an unsecured payment method.

According to the IRS, the scammers have been posing as IRS employees in telephone calls, and threatening potential victims with arrest, revocation of their driver’s licenses and having their utilities cut off. Immigrants have complained they were threatened with deportation.

Income tax fraud criminals also use email to defraud consumers with the goal of getting victims to click on a link to print a “shipping label.” This can download malicious software or lead to a lookalike website that requests personal information.

Hallmarks of these schemes include the spoofing of telephone numbers to appear as if the IRS is calling, the use of common names, surnames and badge numbers to identify themselves. Complicating matters, the scammers sometimes obtain the last four digits of a potential victim’s Social Security number, and use that information to lend legitimacy to their scam, and frighten victims into action.

BBB reminds consumers that government agencies and financial institutions will never ask for personal information or account numbers over the telephone or by email. If you receive such correspondence, forward it to phishing@irs.gov.

For more information on this and related income tax fraud, visit www.irs.gov, and type the word “scam” in the search box.

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Balley Price Holdings - Should You Pay Your Taxes with a Credit Card?

Balley Price Holdings: 4 things you need to do to protect your returns

BP Holdings Tax Management – This post was written by Jim O'Shaughnessy, chairman, CEO and CIO at O'Shaughnessy Asset Management and by Scott Bartone, principal and portfolio manager at O'Shaughnessy Asset Management.

Thank heaven, tax season is over for now. Time to put taxes in the back of your mind until next year, right?  Well actually, no, not if you want to reduce taxes paid on your investments next year.  There are tactics that you can start using today to help minimize your tax bill in 2015.

The Problem
Taxes can significantly erode investment returns if an individual investor or money manager is not accounting for them.  Since short-term gains are taxed at a higher rate than long-term gains or qualified dividends, it is better to avoid triggering short-term gains if you can’t offset those gains with short-term losses.  Look at the hypothetical portfolio assumptions in the table below.  In this year, 50% of the positions were sold at some point, creating taxable impact.  What the table below tells us is that while taxes can detract from returns, we can mitigate their impact by paying attention to whether we sell the positions at a gain or loss, and whether those gains or losses are short or long-term.  We believe that smart and disciplined management does add value over just holding passive ETFs, but smart tax management is a key factor in any strategy.



What You Can Do to Minimize Your Tax Bill
Rather than simply waiting until the end of the year to sell losing positions, tax management is something that should be done throughout the year and should be incorporated into your investment strategy.  By waiting until the end of the year to sell off your losers, you will likely drift away from your investment strategy.  What’s more, you’ll likely not be the only one selling off losers at year’s end, and this negative momentum could push prices down further.

The better plan is to remain invested in your strategy and review your cost basis any time you are looking to trade.  Reviewing your unrealized gains and losses throughout the year—rather than just the year’s end—will give you more “point in time” observations and more opportunities to harvest in your portfolio.  If you have a well-diversified portfolio (as you should!), there are likely stocks that are at a loss throughout the year.  Look at the S&P 500 over the past five years.  If you only review it on an annual basis you only see positive returns, making it difficult to realize offsetting losses.  However, if we look at returns on a monthly basis, we see that in 18 of 60 months, the S&P 500 had negative returns, and some of them were significant.  Even in years when the S&P 500 has strong returns, there are always inflection points when markets turn downward.  To offset gains for tax purposes, investors should take advantage of these periods to realize some losses in their portfolios.

Here's four techniques to use throughout the year:

1. Defer the realization of taxable gains until they go long term – Whenever possible, restrict the sale of a stock that is in a short-term gain position so as not to impose the higher short-term tax rate.  It is often worth delaying the sale of a winning position until you have owned it for more than a year, since the difference in tax rates is substantial.  The short-term tax rate is almost 20% higher (for top earners), so even if your investment has negative performance until it goes long term, you still may end up with more money on an after-tax basis then if you had sold it short term.

2. Target short-term losses within the portfolio to sell – Review your portfolio throughout the year and seek to strategically target sell short-term losses so you can use these as an offset.  Short-term losses can foil short-term gains that you may have earned across your other investments.  If you still have short-term losses after you have netted out your short-term gains, you can then use those losses against your long-term gains.  Finally, if there are still losses left, you can use them as a carry-forward to future tax years.  Again, doing this throughout the year rather than just at the end of the year will give you more chances to find losses in your portfolio.

3. Avoid wash sales when possible – In order to realize the tax benefit of realizing a loss, wash sale rules must be obeyed.  A wash sale occurs when a stock is sold at a loss, and within 30 days before or after sale, you also purchase the same stock.  Should a wash sale trigger, you will not be able to apply losses as an offset.

4. Gifting Securities – If you have a charity that is near and dear to you, gifting a security that has had significant gains can be a way to give to a good cause and also help your tax bill.  By gifting shares that you have held for longer than a year, you can avoid paying taxes on the gains and can also claim the full market value of the shares gifted as a charitable deduction at the end of the year.  Consult the charity of your choice to see if they have a mechanism in place to receive security gifts.

Take the time throughout the year to look at where your portfolio is positioned -  If you have generated significant gains throughout the year or think you will, look for opportunities to sell losses within your portfolio.  Taxes can be a significant drag on returns for individual investors.  You should apply the same rigor to both your investment strategy and your tax strategy to maximize your portfolio’s net performance.


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Monday, May 12, 2014

Legal Advice: What constitutes criminal tax evasion in Vietnam?

BP Holdings Tax Management - Tax obligations often significantly burden businesses operating in Vietnam. To maximize profit, companies often seek out ways to avoid mandatory tax payments. Vietnamese law enforcement is beginning to vigorously monitor and prosecute acts of tax evasion or tax fraud.




Acts of Tax Evasion or Tax Fraud

The following acts are considered tax evasion:

1. Failure to file for tax registration; failure to file a tax declaration; filing a tax declaration more than 90 days after the filing deadline or the filing extension deadline;

2. Failure to properly record any revenue included in the taxable income calculation;

3. Failure to issue invoices upon selling goods or services, or recording lower values than the actually paid values of goods or services;

4. Using unlawful invoices or  vouchers for accounting costs of goods or input materials in operations that give rise to tax liability,  with the intend to  reduce payable tax amount; increase the exempted or reduced tax amount  or increase the creditable or refundable tax amount;

5. Using other unlawful vouchers or documents to incorrectly calculate payable tax amount or refundable tax amount;

6. Failure to file additional declarations where previous declarations are inconsistent with the actual exported or imported goods within sixty days after the customs declaration is registered;

7. Intentionally failing to declare or making incorrect declarations of customs duties;

8. Colluding with goods consignors to evade duties on imported goods;

9. Using duty-free goods for improper purposes without declaring duty.

Once detected by the Vietnam Government, the enterprise evading tax will face tax arrears and become disqualified for tax incentives.


If a corporation committing acts of tax evasion shows any criminal signs, that corporation and its legal representative are subject to the following punishments:

1. Offenders shall be imposed a fine of between 1 and 5 times the evaded tax amount or be subject to non-custodial reform for up to 2 years if:

•    evading tax amounts of between 100 million and under 300 million VND  or ;
•    evading tax amounts of under 100 million VND but have been administratively sanctioned for acts of tax evasion or;
•    having been sentenced for this crime or;
•    having been sentenced for one of the crimes specified in Articles 153 through 160, 164, 193 through 196, 230, 232, 233, 236 and 238 of the Criminal Code, have not yet had such criminal record cleared but commit recidivism.

2. Offenders shall be subject to a fine of between 1 and 5 times the evaded tax amount or subject to a prison term of between 6 months and 3 years if:

•     evading tax in the amount of between 300 million VND and under 600 million VND  or;
•    committing recidivism.

3. Offenders shall be sentenced to between 2 and 7 years if:

•    evading a tax amount of 600 million VND or higher, or
•    evading a tax amount of between 300 million VND and less than 600 million dong and concurrently conduct one of the following acts: offering bribes; resisting or inflicting injury on persons in the performance of their official duties; destroying property of tax administration agencies, tax administration civil servants and other state agencies with responsibilities in tax administration execution provided that such act does not constitute a crime. In case where such act constitutes a crime, apart from tax evasion, the offender is also prosecuted for criminal liabilities on corresponding crime.

4. Aside from the above mentioned punishments, offenders may also be imposed a fine of between 1 and 3 times the evaded tax amount.

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Friday, May 9, 2014

BP Holding Tax Management: Beware of banks selling non-banking products


Top management of banks are pressuring their employees to sell insurance, stocks and mutual funds by hook or by crook. No wonder, departing deputy governor of RBI has suggested banning banks from selling third-party products

From the point of view of retail savers, banks are a place where you park your money and get facilities to withdraw, issue cheques and also borrow. But what happens when a bank employee “advises” you to move in and out of stocks, buy a particular insurance product or buy or sell mutual funds? The result is rampant mis-selling, losses and large number of baffled savers.

Here is an email we just got from an Axis Bank employee. “As you are well aware of the practices followed by banks to sell or mis-sell investments products I need not elaborate them. But believe me the pressure, which is applied by the bank’s management throughout the year for selling these products can only be equated to madness. The management puts so much pressure as if without selling these investment products, the bank will not be able to generate any revenues. Moreover, the high percentage of revenues shared by insurance companies during the first year of sales is a major attraction for banks. Almost all banks organise contests within its staff for maximum selling of insurance products, and the rewards include all-paid foreign trips. All expenses, of course, are borne by the insurance companies. In spite of Cobrapost operation, banks have again started these old practices,” said the employee, who does not want to be named.

This mis-selling is not limited only to selling insurance or mutual funds. Some of the banks, which offer broking services, are found many times to misguide its own customers. Take for example, this investor who has a trading account with Axis Direct. He received a call from an Axis Direct executive sometime in February, asking him to sell his Larsen and Toubro (L&T) shares at Rs981. Totally wrong call, leading to huge loss of profit for this investor, as L&T made hit 52-week high at Rs1,387 on 23 April 2014.

Explaining how this happened, the investor told Moneylife, “On 14th February 2014, I received a call from an Axis Direct executive who said, ‘it is a good time to book profits with L&T as there is no positive outlook on the stock and it has max'ed up and the stock cannot go more than the said level and so book profits immediately.’ I sold 120 L&T shares at the price of Rs981. After this point I kept a watch on the stock and I'd have accepted some Rs20 to Rs50 rise/fall in price, I would not have complained. But here the problem is different. The stock kept on rising and its above Rs1,350 which actually converts to a loss of profit of more than Rs44,000.” When he complained, Axis Direct responded by saying, “the stock decision is the sole discretion of the investor!”

The investor said, “Now I am pissed off and have decided to never take the calls from Axis Direct and might abuse them if they come up with advice. Also I believe that this call was made by someone who was low on his monthly targets and I became the victim.”

There are two hard lessons from these examples: 1. Never trust your “banker” to sell you any non-banking product or a third-party product in your interest. 2. Never take buying and selling advice from an employee who has no stake in your profits and losses. Moneylife tells investor not to trade on “hot stock tips” and make investment decision after doing indepth research and analysis. Moneylife Foundation organised free seminar; “Learn to be Safe & Smart with Your Money" on the basics you need to know for your own financial life. Newly launched Moneylife Smart Savers Network provides a complete guide on personal finance.

More related content at Balley Price Holdings

Thursday, May 8, 2014

BP Holding Tax Management: Handy tips for filling in your tax form


Would you like to make some extra money? Some might be dropping into your bank account at the beginning of December if you take a little trouble over filling in your tax form.

1.Make sure that your personal information and bank account details are correctly filled out in the pre-completed tax return form. The tax administration will obtain information on your pay and pension directly from various sources, such as employers, pension insurance company and banks. Check that this information is also correct.

Many tax-payers are taken by surprise when they find out that information on rental income must also be reported to the tax authorities even if advance tax has been paid on it. Failing to report the income may lead to an increase in the tax.

2. Tax deductions are the easiest way of scraping together money for Christmas presents. Many employees are entitled to deductions for their travel costs between home and workplace. Fill in the information if it is missing from the form. Costs exceeding 600 euros are deductible, with the maximum deduction totalling 7,000 euros.

Everyone earning wages is entitled to a deduction for work-related costs. The deduction is granted automatically by the tax authorities.

The whole sum exceeding the limit of 620 euros can be included in the deduction.

Deductible costs include the use of an office at home and the purchase of professional literature and equipment or devices used for work.

3.Remember to apply for domestic help credit if you have had work done at home or have ordered some care services. The company that carried out the work must be registered for VAT. Costs exceeding 100 euros are deductible, with the maximum deduction totalling 2,000 euros in 2013. Remember to save all the receipts and invoices.

4. If you have been trading shares or real estate, check the information included in the form and complete any missing details. Reporting profits and losses is not always straightforward and if the tax authorities do not receive all the information they need for calculating the profit you may be hit with an extra tax.

5.Extra information and attachments can be reported online at Vero.fi/veroilmoitus (the service is available in Finnish and Swedish). The report does not have to be completed in one sitting but information can be added until the due date, which is either  7 or 15 May for private people.

Expert advice was given by Päivi Kaari, a lawyer with the Finnish Taxpayers’ Association.

For more tips visit Balley Price Holdings

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

BP Holding Tax Management: Tax-free bonuses disappoint as Middle East bankers plan job hunt

Bankers and other financial professionals in the Middle East are seeking new jobs even as those reporting an increased bonus for 2013 were higher than in other global financial centers, according to eFinancialCareers.

Almost 60 percent of the region’s financial services employees plan to change position this year, with 45 percent saying they were disappointed with their bonus, eFinancial said in a report. Bonuses rose for half of Middle East finance professionals, compared with 49 percent in the U.K., 47 percent in the U.S. and Hong Kong and 42 percent in Singapore.

Dubai, which teetered on the brink of default in 2009, is rebounding as equity and property markets soar. Banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Renaissance Capital are boosting teams in the region and hiring bankers from the competition.

“Bonuses have failed to meet expectations, and the level of employees looking for a new job is also worrying,” James Bennett, global managing director of the financial services site, said in the report. “If employers can’t meet their employees’ bonus expectations, they will need to find new ways to strengthen the loyalty of their talent.”

Base salaries for 52 percent of the finance professionals surveyed gained, while 47 percent said they were unchanged. A total of 44 percent said they were somewhat or very happy with their base salary, based on a survey of 532 finance professionals in the United Arab Emirates in March. EFinance, a financial careers website, said 223 of the professionals questioned knew the amount of their 2013 bonus.

The UAE, which consists of sheikhdoms including Dubai and Abu Dhabi, doesn’t impose taxes on regular income or bonuses. Dubai International Financial Center, a tax-free business park, is home to regional offices of banks including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup Inc. and Standard Chartered PLC.

Junior bankers in the UAE are reaping almost 36 percent more salary than their counterparts in London, according to a March report from compensation data provider Emolument.

Fixed salaries at the analyst level average $91,000, compared with $73,000 in the U.K. capital. Bonuses averaged $27,000 compared with $14,000. For associates, fixed pay in the UAE was $107,000, compared with $108,000 in London, while bonuses of $40,000 in the U.K. were about 29 percent higher.

For more related content visit Balley Price Holdings

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

BP Holding Tax Management: Hong Kong receive 243.5 bln HK dollars in tax revenue in 2013-14

HONG KONG, May 2 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong received 243.5 billion HK dollars in tax revenue in 2013-14, setting another record high after the 2012-13 collection year, according to Inland Revenue Department of the city government.

Announcing the figure at a press conference on Friday, Commissioner of Inland Revenue Wong Kuen fai said the duty collected represents an increase of 1.4 billion HK dollars, or 1 percent, on 2012-13.

Revenue from salaries tax grew 10 percent to 55.6 billion HK dollars.


Revenue from profits tax fell 4 percent to 120.9 billion HK dollars, while that from stamp duty dropped 3 percent to 41.5 billion HK dollars.

Wong forecast a total revenue of about 242.7 billion HK dollars in the year ahead.

He said the department is sending out 2.37 million tax returns for this year, and reminded taxpayers to return them by June 3.