Monday, April 23, 2012

Texas Comptroller Announces Business Tax Amnesty

Have back or delinquent business taxes? Fines and interest mounting up?

 Don't worry about it. You are about to get a free pass.

The Texas Comptrollers office has just announced a Business Tax Amnesty program, where by you can have your ledger marked clean by filing your non/under/incorrectly reported return, but you only have the window from June 12 through August 17, 2012 to do it.

Not a bad deal, right?

The amnesty is good for any thing the Comptroller assesses, except property tax, PUC Commission Gross Receipts Assessments, Sports/Community Venue tax, and taxes under audit or where a settlement has already been done.
But wait, why are they doing this?

A couple reasons. They did it last in 2007, and raised about $100 million in unpaid taxes. Not a bad deal for them.

Ok, is it too good to be true?

Not really. If you have back taxes or have under reported, it can put you out of business. The fact your can waive 100% of penalties and interest is really remarkable, and you shouldn't let this chance get away as it might not come back again for 5 years.

So, what's the catch?

The only downside I see is that if you tell on yourself for not/under reporting, without a good excuse, this might increase your likelihood of future audit. That's all I can really see.

To see if this is right for you, contact your accountant or a business attorney, but do it quickly.  

4 comments:

  1. This is a welcome idea. More than the payroll adjustments and the tax credit, I think this is so far the best the government has come about in this recession. Thanks for sharing.

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  2. Can I use this program to get rid of student loans?

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  3. LA Probate- Anytime. It seems like the government is throwing us a pretty nice bone yere.

    Christy-Sadly no. This is only for businesses, not individual taxpayers.

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  4. I think this is one of the complete payroll solutions that the government devised in order to protect their workers. I hope this one would continue for a longer basis.

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