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Carl Specht’s wife recently asked him what he thought about taking a summer vacation this year.

Specht, an accountant in the midst of tax season, was as polite as he could be, considering the circumstances.

"I said, ‘Don’t ask me about that ‘till after tax season — I can’t focus on that right now,’" he recalled.

It’s a good thing Specht, a partner with Costantino, Specht, Templeton & Co. in Secaucus, enjoys the nature of his work. Otherwise, getting to work at 6:30 a.m. would be a rough four months before taxes are due. Those quiet, early morning hours are when he does his volunteer work: filing returns for three dozen seniors from Kearny, where he lives.

"This was just the thing to do," he said. "I felt the CPA path and my CPA license was something I was very appreciative of, and I wanted to give something back to the profession that was providing me with my livelihood."

The early wake-up also means he can focus on his own projects, and save the rest of the day for paying clients who come in and, Specht said, "keep the practice going."

Accountants spend the long days between Jan. 1 and the tax deadline, April 17 this year, meeting with clients and plugging away at tax software on the computer. It is not uncommon for accountants to work 60-hour weeks, with the expectation employees will come in on Saturdays, said Ralph Albert Thomas, executive director of the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants. Specht said he tries to leave the office by 7 so he can go home to his wife and have a bite to eat, but then he retreats to his home office for a few more hours of work.

Last year, the IRS received 145.3 million tax returns, more than three-fourths of which were filed electronically nationwide. Of that number, 72.4 million returns came in from private tax preparers or companies like Parsippany-based Jackson Hewitt or H&R Block, and 39.8 million taxpayers filed their own returns, said IRS spokeswoman Dianne Besunder.

"We really go full out from January through April," Specht said. "And then you kind of hit the wall — at that point, you crash for a couple of days, and then come back to life because you have people who have gone on extensions or who have been late."

This year, accountants are rejoicing for an extra three days — it’s a Leap Year, and taxes aren’t due until April 17 because the 15th is a Sunday and the 16th is a Washington D.C. holiday. But the freedom is short-lived. People who file for an extension have until Oct. 15, giving accountants a second busy rush in the fall.

Tax season, Specht said, "seems like it starts earlier and it ends later."

To help during crunch time, accounting firms try to lighten the mood. Some companies will host an ice cream bar, with the partners serving up the treats, while others offer on-site masseuses and healthy, catered meals, Thomas said. The society itself sends out goodie bags, full of popcorn, pretzels and sweets that are devoured within minutes.

Some accounting firms actually force their employees to take time off during tax season by banning work on one Saturday a month, and fine anyone who tries to sneak in anyway. (The money is then used to throw a party, Thomas said.)

"They’re actually trying to make life a little better, and achieve a balance," Thomas said.

Tax season at the Traphagen Financial Group in Oradell means one thing — it’s time to stop shaving. The firm’s founder, Peter Traphagen, started the tradition 42 years ago as a way to save time in the morning, but it has grown into an annual event that builds cameraderie. Every year, the men in the office put down their razors around Jan. 1, and gather on the afternoon of the tax deadline to have their beards cut off.

"Some clients have suggested over the years that we send our shorn hairs to the Internal Revenue Service," said managing partner Robert Traphagen, Peter’s brother. "We have yet to pursue that."

Specht has his own routine, and for the better part of two decades he has spent each spring volunteering his time to help low-income and senior taxpayers with their returns. Most of his career was in private industry, and only recently — in 2006 — did Specht start his own public accounting firm with two close friends. But he has always found time between January and April to help those less fortunate. The additional work has never really bothered him, he said, and at age 62, he hasn’t considered retirement.

"If you didn’t love what you did, it would be a big problem," Specht said. "But those of us who have been doing this for a long time and really enjoy our work and the people we work with, you don’t even think of it as work."

Sarah Portlock: (973) 392- 5994 or sportlock@starledger.com

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Crunch time for CPAs as tax season ramps up

                                                       (Image Credit: Christophe Lehena / Getty Images)

Newt Gingrich said the country is under attack by a the "secular left," Mitt Romney is concerned about President Obama's "secular agenda" and Rick Santorum has said repeatedly that the idea of an absolute separation of church and state makes him want to "throw up."

As the Republican presidential campaign drags on, the idea of a secular government is increasingly under fire. And Obama is personally under fire from Republican candidates, particularly Santorum,  who recently said the president's theology, especially where it comes to environmental laws, is " phony."

Obama's former press secretary said that comment "crossed the line."

But Americans by more than a 2-1 margin, 66 percent to 29 percent, say political leaders should not rely on their religious beliefs in making policy decisions," according to an ABC News-Washington Post poll from September of 2011.

This includes very narrow majorities of Republicans and conservatives, and much larger majorities of others.

Santorum apparently believes the most strongly about blurring the separation between church and state. He passionately defended his position in an interview with George Stephanopoulos Sunday, repeating that John F. Kennedy's famous 1960 speech pledging he would not bring his religion to the office of president "makes me throw up."

"To say that people of faith have no role in the public square?  You bet that makes you throw up.  What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case?" Santorum said.

He called the president someone "who is now trying to tell people of faith that you will do what the government says, we are going to impose our values on you, not that you can't come to the public square and argue against it, but now we're going to turn around and say we're going to impose our values from the government on people of faith, which of course is the next logical step when people of faith, at least according to John Kennedy, have no role in the public square."

Kennedy was the first and only Catholic president. He talked about his religion in 1960 in an address to protestant ministers.

"So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in - for that should be important only to me - but what kind of America I believe in. I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him. "

NPR has posted audio Kennedy's 1960 speech.

Fifty-two years later, Obama has come under attack for trying to tell churches what to do. The issue most at hand is a requirement by the Health and Human Services Department  that groups affiliated with churches - charities and hospitals, but not the churches themselves - must offer access to birth control in health insurance plans. The White House sought to soften the mandate by saying it is the insurance company that pays for the birth control coverage, but the criticism on the right that the administration declared a "war on religion" has persisted, particularly on the campaign trail.

Freedom of religion is a basic tenet of the United States. It states plainly in the First Amendment - the first changes the framers of the Constitution made to the document - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…".

That clause has been the subject of argument and interpretation ever since, whether it is prayer in schools or the 10 commandments displayed at a state capitol. Is it meant that religion should not be a part of government or that government must simply respect religion. If government is not free of religion - 80 percent of Americans call themselves Christian - would it essentially become a religious state?

Obama has showcased his own faith recently, suggesting at a recent prayer breakfast that an adherence to the teachings of Jesus might lead Republicans to support a tax increase for the wealthy.

One year earlier at the 2011 prayer breakfast, he spoke in depth about his own faith and his relationship with God.

But the president is much less popular among Americans who go to church at least once a week, according to a February poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and  Public Life. He wins handily among Americans who seldom or never go to church.

"I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute," Santorum said Sunday. "The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.

"This is the First Amendment.  The First Amendment says the free exercise of religion.  That means bringing everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square."

Santorum, a devout Catholic, is the most outspoken Republican on the issue, but his point has been echoed by two of his rivals.

Gingrich, who converted to Catholicism when he married his third wife, has also lashed out against what he perceives as a war on religion by "the secular left."

"The forces of the secular left believe passionately and deeply, and with frankly a religious fervor, in their world view and they will regard what I am saying as a horrifying assault on what they think is the truth," Gingrich said. "Because their version of the truth is to have a totally neutral government that has no meaning," said Gingrich in Georgia.

Mitt Romney, who is Mormon, has accused Obama of having a "secular agenda."

"You expect the president of the United States to be sensitive to that freedom and protect it and, unfortunately, perhaps because of the people the president hangs around with, and their agenda, their secular agenda, they have fought against religion," Romney said, responding to a question at a town hall recently about religious freedoms, in particular the Obama administration's recent controversial attempt to require all institutions, including hospitals and colleges with religious affiliations, to offer free birth control and other contraceptives.

Ron Paul wants a separated church and state, but he wants to return to a charitable system of churches and community groups to help the poor and the sick.

For Santorum, whose political brand is steeped in social conservatism, a desire to bring God into the oval office and policy is not unexpected. Although hearing him say a famous and much-cited John F. Kennedy speech makes him nauseous is jarring.

Santorum's view has not always been so clear cut. In 2006, during an ultimately unsuccessful bid for re-election as a senator from Pennsylvania, Santorum said he would support contr
aception and  public funding for contraception programs even though he was, as a devout Catholic, personally opposed to them, and thought contraception itself was "harmful to women."

Romney gave a speech in 2007 during his first run for the White House in which he sought to assuage a perceived concern among some Republican primary voters about his Mormonism.

"If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States," Romney said in December off 2007 at the George H.W. Bush Library at Texas A&M University.

Obama's religion has long been the subject of speculation by conspiracy theorists and even some influential leaders who question it.

Rev. Franklin Graham, for instance, recently said he can't say for sure that Obama is a Christian, but he is sure that Rick Santorum is.

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Separating Church and State: Vomit-Inducing or Necessary for Freedom of Religion?

If you’ve been persecuted or harassed by the FBI in the past, you have good reason to celebrate. The FBI can no longer utilize GPS tracking technology to monitor movement without a warrant to do so. The Supreme Court has ruled that no GPS tracking can take place in an investigation without a proper warrant being secured first. This prompted the FBI to turn off about 3000 devices that were currently in use.

Apparently, this is a game changing ruling for the U.S. Justice Department who has been employing this tactic for quite some time. Most typically, the GPS units are affixed to the underbody of vehicles to keep tabs on a suspects movements.

FBI General Counsel, Andrew Weissmann reports that retrieving the devices has not been easy since the order was handed down to deactivate them. In many cases, a warrant must be issued to have them turned back on so they may be located and recovered.

According to Weissmann, the case of the United States VS. Jones (The litigation which yielded the ruling), is going to have Justice officials scrambling to adhere to the new finding. If it is trespassing to place tracking devices on a vehicle, there could be further implications based on current practices.

Weissmann explains:

“From a law enforcement perspective, even though its not technically holding, we have to anticipate how it’s going to go down the road,”

I guess it isn’t really a big deal to the general population, but I feel that if the government wants to track the movements of an individual, they should have probable cause. If that’s the case, obtaining a warrant shouldn’t be too difficult.

In my opinion, the general public has been letting people in powerful positions abuse our resources for far too long. We pay every public employee’s salary with our tax dollars, and the people should reserve the right to call them out on abusive and costly practices.

Last week, I reported on the disgraceful insider trading that is going on with our lawmakers, and this ‘GPS tracking without warrants’ is another case of government waste and hypocrisy. Stop using our tax dollars to violate the laws you helped create Uncle Sam. Thank you Supreme Court.

Excerpt from:
Freedom From FBI Tracking Devices Is Here

By Mike Nester For The Prairie Advocate News

MOUNT CARROLL – The Carroll County Board of Review denied two requests on Monday, Feb. 20, made by the Eastland School District regarding the recent tax assessments in Freedom Township.

The Review Board ruled against a written protest and appeal regarding the tax assessment increase and also refused a motion requesting recusal of board member Lou Schloderbach.

In the Protest and Appeal of the tax assessment in Freedom Township, the Eastland School Board was seeking an eight percent decrease in real estate assessments instead of the nearly 20 percent that the state formula had determined.

At its January meeting, the Eastland Board voted 5-2 to protest the assessments

“No one refuted the fact that property values had declined,” Eastland Supt. of Schools Mark Hansen said. “The concern was that the re-assessments as published not only corrected for real declines in value, but were improperly lowered below that level in a non-quadrennial year.”

“This is particularly concerning as Eastland depends primarily on property taxes for its funding, and given the fact that state funding is being reduced,” added the Eastland School leader. “If the appeal is not successful, District revenues will be reduced by approximately $275,000 above and beyond what is already being lost as a result of declining EAV and reductions in state funding.”

Too much, too soon

In their protest, Eastland argued the property in question shouldn’t have been reassessed prior to the four-year statute and it should have only been reduced by eight percent, instead of the 18.27 percent.

The Review Board, comprised of Judy Dampman and Richard Delaney, examined all 17 points of the Eastland complaint, but disagreed with the school district’s view of how the property taxes were derived; going strictly by numbers determined by state statutes.

Carroll County Chief Assessor Annette Gruhn presented the Board of Review with state statutes that showed her legal obligation to reassess Freedom Township.

Gruhn said after receiving the states numbers on the 58 sales of property in Freedom Township in 2010, plus sales for the past two years, the sales ratio was 58.48, way over the 33.3 percent range. She stated this was the reason for the reassessment and added it was the highest level they ever had.

Carroll County’s assessor explained that housing sales weren’t off much but the lots, especially those at Lake Carroll, were way over-assessed. She said many of the lots lost 3/4 their value.

Gruhn held a telephone conference call with members of the Illinois Dept. of Revenue about the reassessment of Freedom Township and discussed the Sales Ratio Study of 58.48. She also spoke with IDOR officials regarding the early reassessment and presented two state statutes verifying the early assessment and the action.

Gruhn said Carroll County followed the same procedure in 2003 when property values were on the rise and increased the assessed value by 14.3 percent.

The Board of Review felt the Eastland School District didn’t provide any evidence to dispute the state’s numbers, similar to when citizens protest their personal real estate taxes. Both Dampman and Delaney said they needed to see some numbers to help prove the property was under assessed.

Supt. Hansen told the Prairie Advocate it’s important to understand that whether or not the District is successful in its appeal, it will be generating less revenues next year than this year. 

“Because everyone agrees that property values have declined, the only question is how much less,” said Hansen.

According to Hansen, if property is under-assessed it:

- further reduces the revenue the District can access to operate its programs;

- increases the burden on property owners whose property is accurately assessed;

- creates a “false bottom” from which future equalizations may be applied;

- and does undue harm at a time when the State is not meeting its constitutional obligation to fund public education.

He said these were some of the considerations that individual Eastland Board members weighed in deciding whether to appeal the assessments.

In 2010 the equalized assessed value of the Eastland District was $195,525,469. It is now estimated to be $171,075,140.

Recusal request denied

The Eastland School District also filed a motion with the Board of Review requesting recusal of board member Lou Schloderbach because in part they felt he couldn’t “fairly and impartially review” and give a “fair and impartial assessment of all property” while ruling on the Freedom Township issue. Schloderbach resides in Freedom Township.

In the motion, the Eastland Board said Schloderbach addressed the school board at its Jan. 18 meeting and according to the motion, “expressed concern about any attempt by the Board of Education to protest tax assessment within Freedom Township, the legal costs of such protests, and asked questions that reasonably indicate that he believed such effort was unwarranted.”

The Eastland Board felt Schloderbach had publicly and irrevocably demonstrated that he cannot fairly and impartially consider the matter.

The Board of Review denied the motion citing that Schloderbach was acting as a taxpayer in the Eastland School District and not as a member of the Carroll County Board of Review. They were presented with a legal ruling from State’s Attorney Scott Brinkmeier who said he felt the law stated that Schloderbach was not in any violation of “fair and impartial” review.

The Board of Review had also requested a recording of what Schloderbach had said at the meeting and were told that no such copy existed.

Both Dampman and Delaney said Schloderbach could abstain if he felt there was an issue. Schloderbach did not attend the Feb. 20 hearing.

The Eastland School District now has the option of having a hearing on the tax assessment issue with the Board of Review. According to Gruhn, a hearing has yet to be scheduled.

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Board of Review Denies Eastland on Both Counts

News that Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) has fallen foul of the authorities for “highly abusive” tax avoidance schemes will not come as a surprise to those who follow Britain’s banks.

Barclays has long been perceived as the most aggressive player in the tax structuring business, devising products that arbitraged the rules to reduce clients’ bills. At its peak, Barclays even turned a part of its operation structured capital markets (SCM) over to tax avoidance.

SCM, under Roger Jenkins, became a huge profit engine. In one year, it was reported to have made £1bn for the bank and, shortly afterwards, Jenkins shot to notoriety as Barclays’ best-paid employee pocketing a reputed £40m a year. As SCM sat within the investment bank, Barclays Capital, the details were never properly disclosed, but never officially rebutted either.

Though legal, the behaviour raised ethical questions that came into particular focus after the financial crisis as, although Barclays never received direct taxpayer support, it relied at times on state funding schemes to keep afloat.

The backlash began in 2009, when Barclays hit the headlines after a whistleblower leaked documents to the Liberal Democrats which purported to show that it was using a network of subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg to minimise clients’ taxes.

Barclays had the story injuncted on the grounds that the material was commercially sensitive, but its reputation took a hit and questions began to be asked about how much tax the bank itself was avoiding.

Early last year, it was forced into an embarrassing admission. In front of the Treasury Select Committee, chief executive Bob Diamond, who had nurtured SCM when he was head of BarCap, was forced to reveal that the bank operated nearly 300 subsidiaries in tax havens and had paid just £113m of corporation tax in the UK in 2009 a year in which it handed out £3.4bn in bonuses.

Since then, the questions have not gone away. Politicians have queried whether a bizarre deal struck in 2009 to move billions of toxic assets off its balance sheet was not just a tax ruse. The Protium arrangement raised such serious concerns in the US that the authorities would not let it drop until the deal was unwound at great expense to shareholders last year.

Analysis of Barclays accounts by The Daily Telegraph has raised further questions. According to the 2010 results, the bank generated £591m in “tax losses carried forward” despite making £6bn of profits before tax. The tax gain suggested the bank crystallised £2bn of losses that year, which the annual report said “mainly relates to entities in the USA, the UK and Spain”.

However, Barclays would not disclose where the £2bn of losses were incurred once again muddying the waters. The bank now has assets that it can offset against future tax payments that are almost as large as Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group (LSE: LLOY.L - news) . While both the state-backed banks made huge visible losses, Barclays has reported profits every year for more than a decade.

The bank has always tried to draw attention to the tax it is paying, which the latest results showed was 32.8pc of profits in 2011, but so far it has not been enough to answer its critics.

Meanwhile, the question of business ethics keeps arising. At the end of last year, in his BBC Business Lecture, Diamond remarked that “rebuilding trust requires banks to be better citizens”. Barclays has also repeatedly stressed: “We are signatories of the UK Government’s code of conduct on tax and comply with the spirit and letter of the tax code.”

However, the authorities this week clearly decided that Barclays has been complying with the letter but not the spirit of the code. According to David Gauke, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, Barclays should never have devised the schemes that it has been ordered to close in the first place.

“The bank that disclosed these schemes to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has adopted the Banking Code of Practice on Taxation which contains a commitment not to engage in tax avoidance,” he said. “The government is clear that these are not transactions that a bank that has adopted the code should be undertaking.”

As Gauke observed, the retrospective charge, which sources say will cost Barclays about £150m, will deliver the bank “a substantial reputational hit”. And, once again, it is not a surprise it was Barclays that came under fire.

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Barclays has previous when it comes to tax avoidance