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STRATEGIC ISSUES...ONLINE
For week of March 28,
2005, Issue #205
Featured Articles:
1. IRS Rules on Wrap Fees
2. Are "Phishing" and
Identity Theft Really that
Serious?
3. Tech Tip Weekly: Cleaning
Up Old Icons
4. Compliance Calendar
1. IRS Rules on Wrap Fees
A new Internal Revenue Service
ruling on wrap fee payments
may allow investors to
preserve more of the cash
they've accumulated in their
individual retirement
accounts.
In a private letter ruling (PLR)
released last month, the IRS
clarified the treatment of
various wrap fee structures
for both IRAs and Roth IRAs.
The IRS declared that payments
of wrap fees won't be treated
as "deemed contributions" to
IRAs and/or Roth IRAs if the
clients pay the wrap fees with
money from outside accounts.
The practice now is to pay
wrap fees from the IRA
accounts, which reduces the
retirement money compounding
within them.
The question was whether fees
paid with outside dollars
should actually be considered
a contribution, thereby
causing a reduction to an IRA
account holders' already
limited contribution.
The fee can be paid with
outside dollars and the IRA
account will not be reduced by
that amount and therefore [the
investor is] preserving a
higher balance to continue to
grow tax deferred.
2. Are "Phishing" and
Identity Theft Really That
Serious?
The U.S. Attorney General says
identity theft is the
fastest-growing white-collar
crime in the country, costing
$60 billion in the past five
years. Nearly 10 million
Americans (2.3% of the U.S.
population) have fallen victim
to it. According to the FBI,
70% of victims are between the
ages of 20 and 50.
Reports of Internet scams have
more than doubled each year
since 2001, but only three
percent of those who see it
actually report it. The Anti-Phishing
Working Group
http://www.antiphishing.org/
estimates that "phishing"
incidents are increasing by
50% every month with as many
as 5% of recipients either
responding to or clicking the
links within the fraudulent
emails.
3. Cleaning Up Old
Icons
Your MS Windows desktop is a
great place to park things for
short periods of time, but a
lousy place for organizing
anything long-term. Start by
cleaning up the mess that's
there right now.
1. Right-click an
empty location on the desktop
and click Properties,
Desktop.
2. Click Customize
Desktop.
3. Click Clean
Desktop Now.
4. Click Next. The
Desktop Cleanup Wizard scans
only for shortcuts.
It doesn't even look at other
kinds of files or folders (or
zipped/compressed folders).
Follow this procedure all the
way to the end to move all
your unused, or rarely used,
desktop items. The Desktop
Cleanup Wizard presents the
results of its scan.
5. Review the
shortcuts with check marks
next to them, and feel free to
check any shortcuts that you
don't expect to use in the
near future.
6. Click Next, and
then click Finish.
All the shortcuts you checked
are shuffled to a folder on
the desktop called Unused
Desktop Shortcuts.
7. Click OK twice to
clear out the dialog boxes.
4. Compliance
Calendar
March 30
-Employers deposit Social
Security, Medicare, and
withheld income tax for
payments on March 23, 24, and
25.
April 1
-Employers deposit Social
Security, Medicare, and
withheld income tax for
payments on March 26, 27, 28,
and 29.
April 6
-Employers deposit Social
Security, Medicare, and
withheld income tax for
payments on March 30, 31, and
April 1.
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This newsletter has
been compiled by
Prangley Marks, LLP
for our clients and
other interested
persons. The
information
presented may or may
not apply to your
facts and
circumstances and
should not be acted
upon without
professional advice.
Prangley Marks, LLP
Accountants and Consultants
"The Way We Figure, We Are The Only CPA Firm You Will Ever Need"
333 Bridge Street, NW, 11th Floor Bridgewater Place, Grand Rapids, MI 49504-5356
Phone#: 616-774-9004, Fax#: 616-774-9081