After the Shutdown, the new tax season starts late

There are plans to delay the new tax-filling season with a week or two because of the government shutdown - this was revealed by the Internal Revenue Service in official statement. The final decision will be made in December, but for now the plans are to start accepting returns between 28th of January and 4th of February 2014.

Note that this tax season also included a delay – from 22th of January to 30th or 8 days altogether, so it might come out to be a second year in a row with delayed start.

The acting commissioner from IRS, Mr. Daniel I. Werfel said that “Readying our systems to handle the tax season is an intricate, detailed process, and we must take the time to get it right.” There won't be any changes about the filing deadline for your tax returns from 2013, it will be as usual April 15th.

HMRC’s personal tax returns has increased with 40%

As reported by the UHY Hacker Young Group, a UK chartered accountant company, HM Revenue & Customs, following investigations into personal tax returns, increased the amount of collected tax compared to the last year. The result for year 2012-2013 is £609m which is almost 40% more compared to the year before - £441m.



The credit for this increase probably should go to the so called “Affluent Team” which currently has more than 300 inspectors, based in 17 teams in six locations across the UK. The Affluent team targets wealthy people who habitually use avoidance schemes, have a low effective Rate of Tax across their total income, have UK and offshore property portfolios avoid or evade Stamp Duty on property purchases, fail to file their Self Assessment return on time and have bank accounts in Switzerland who appear to be understating their tax liability.

 

 

According to UHY Hacker Young, for 2015, it is expected to recover around £586m in unpaid taxes.

Worked in the United Kingdom? Why not apply for a tax refund with us to get your taxes back!

Top 10 USA colleges and universities when it comes to financial aid for international students

It is not a secret that to study at a university or college in USA, is a dream for a lot of international students. In order to do so, though, involves paying the various fees for tuition in their full size. Add to this the money to be spent for housing and living costs and it is definitely not a small investment.

A recent report, prepared by US News & World Report reveals the top 10 universities/colleges in term of giving the most financial aid to international students. The chart is composed using such educational institutions that are giving aid to at least 50 students for the 2012-2013 school year.

It is to be noted that getting the scholarship is not guaranteed. For example, the University of Chicago, which tops the chart with average aid awarded to international undergraduates of near $56,500, in fact had only 57 students that received the help or totally 11% of all of the international undergraduates.

Here is the list of the top 10 universities/colleges. As you can see, the left row shows the rank given by U.S. News and the applicable category:

The immigration reform – backed by college presidents

While the heated discussion about the immigration reform in the USA is currently ongoing, organizations supporting the bill are trying to speak their voice and concern about it being stalled in Congress because of the redirected attention to the situation in Syria.

 

Recently, it is reported that a letter was send to the congressional delegation from Florida, written and signed by college presidents and education leaders. It singles out that more than half of the students reaching advanced degrees in mathematics and science are composed by foreign students on, for example, F-1 or M-1 visas. It makes sense that those intelligent and now educated individuals to be tempted to remain in the country after they complete their education – contributing to the whole economy and driving it forward.

 

  

It is to be noted that a lot of protests are being planned all over the United States to back the immigration reform.

Did you worked in the United States? Why not apply for a tax refund with us to get your taxes back!

The most expensive country for international study... and the winner is - Australia!

Recent research by HSBC.com confirmed that once again, Australia is the most expensive country for foreign students.

The average university and living cost for a year are estimated to be more than $38,500. Not very far behind comes the United States with calculated average costs and fees totaling more than $35,700.Actually, the difference here comes from the lower costs of living – annually, they are around $3,000 lower compared to those in Australia.

According to a study, conducted from the Institute of International Education, part of "Open Doors" project, 2011 – 21% of the entire study population in Australia is composed by foreign students from overseas. The United Kingdom is second here with 18%, while Canada and the United States get 13% and 3% respectively. We can conclude from here that even leading as a most expensive country for foreign students, Australia is still and will remain a popular destination in this area. Also, if you are curious about the Australian educational system, you can check out the 10 reasons to study in Australia.

But back to the main table – third place in it holds the United Kingdom, with yearly total of around $30,300. It is to be noted that in the UK the university fees are lay lower, around $19,000 per year, while the costs of living are even more than those in the United States – totaling $11,000.

The rest of the list is composed by United Arab Emirates, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Russia, China, Taiwan, Spain and Germany.



Studied and worked in Australia? You can apply for a tax refund to get your taxes back!

Budget cuts and ID thefts causes delays for the IRS

 

Reports coming from different sources are revealing that this year a lot of residents and non-residents of the USA are experiencing delays when it comes to receiving of their income tax refunds. But what triggered this and how long can it take before the returns are fully processed and the refunded money are sent to the people?

But before doing any further analysis of the current stage of the problem, it is essential to try to find what caused all of this. And, without doubt, the main reason are the budget cuts for the agency. The data published from TIGTA Conference Report says that “IRS has achieved $1 billion in budget cuts and efficiencies since 2010” and also “travel and training expenses are down more than 80 percent since 2010”. In order to do so, they also increased the use of virtual meetings and trainings to cut costs - mainly from traveling. They say that “we did not hold any similar, large-scale nationwide meetings like these in 2011, 2012 or 2013, and we do not have any plans to do so going forward.”

How it is looking this year so far? IRS, due to those budget cuts, did not worked 4 days until now - on May 24, June 14, July 5, July 22, and will be closed on August 30. It is worthy saying that the cuts are estimated to nearly $1 billion in two years with more than $600 million from sequestration from March. Of course, the agency denies that all of this impacted the service. The whole picture is not getting better with the Congress threating to cut the IRS budget with nearly 25% the next fiscal year.

The said immediate sequestration had its negative effects, that is for sure, but the decision by theInternal Revenue Service to push back the start of the filing season did not helped as well. It was supposed to start on January 22, but was postponed with 8 days to January 30 2013.

 

Another aspect of the delay is the massive anti-fraud campaign targeted at the ID thefts, claiming illegally income tax refunds. According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, until 29th of June, IRS had exposed nearly 1.9 million incidents of the fraud which is almost double from the same period of the fiscal 2011. The reported increase from 2012 to 2013 is around 65%.

As a effect of those budget cuts and anti-identity theft programs, a lot legitimate income tax returns are experiencing delays with some of them having more than 4 weeks added to the usual time frame. So far, IRS processed 590,000 fewer returns as of May 10. When it comes to the the issued refunds, they are 1.44 million less compared to the ones from the previous year.

Having answered the first question from the headline, we still cannot predict how long it will take IRS to process the remaining returns. Our hopes are with them to succeed in the near future since a lot of the people, mainly those with low income are relying on those money.

Visa delays in Canada

After the successful past year (2012) for the international students in Canada, the recent strikes might have caused delays for the on-going processing of visas for the foreign students and tourists.

We already mentioned that year 2012 was a success in terms of newly arrived international students in Canada. The numbers had exceeded 100 000 people - this is reported as a huge increase since the past years (Source: Citizenship and Immigration Canada).

For the past months, there were numerous of strikes organized by the Canadian Foreign Service officers, demanding for wage adjustments and resumption of contract negotiations with the Canadian government. So far, the effects of this is a reported delay of up to 6 weeks in the processing of study and tourist visas. Obviously, this can result in less interest from foreigners, planning to visit and/or study in Canada for the coming months. As for tourism, the Tourism Industry Association of Canada reported potential loses of CAD $280 million for 2013.

Depending what course of action will be adopted by the government will determine where exactly those people will go. The United States of America as a near country and with their immigration reform currently being considered, might be the alternative for them.

It is clear that all of this can cause negative effects on the Canadian economy in long term, so all we can do is hope they overcome those problems and continue the good practice from the past years in terms of foreign students and tourists.

The average tax refund from Canada is $950 CAD. You can apply for Canadian tax refund with us now.