Archive for November, 2010
What Every Tax Return Preparer Needs to Know about Applying for a PTIN for 2011
New regulations require all paid tax return preparers to apply for a Preparer Tax Identification Number — even those who already have one — before preparing any federal tax returns in 2011.
The PTIN requirement is one of the first provisions being implemented in a new oversight program to help regulate the tax preparation industry. Beginning January 1, 2011, anyone paid to prepare all or substantially all of any federal tax return or claim for refund must have a PTIN. The requirement applies to all paid tax return preparers, including those who are enrolled agents, certified public accountants and attorneys.
Tax return preparers can register immediately using a new PTIN sign-up system available through www.IRS.gov/taxpros. Tax return preparers who received their PTINs prior to Sept. 28, 2010, must register using the new sign-up system. Preparers will need to create an account, complete the PTIN application and pay a $64.25 fee. To apply for a PTIN online, follow these four easy steps:
Create Your Account — Create an account by providing your name, email address and security question information. The system will then email your temporary password, which you will change when you go back to enter your information in the PTIN application.
Apply for Your PTIN — Complete the online application by providing certain information from your previous year’s tax return, professional credentials, and more.
Pay Your Fee — the application will transfer you to our partner bank where you will make your payment by credit card or direct debit.
Get Your PTIN — after the bank confirms your payment, your PTIN is provided online. If you already have a PTIN, you will retain the same number in most cases. You will also receive a welcome letter providing additional guidance.
It only takes about 15 minutes to sign up online and receive your PTIN. If you opt to use the paper application, Form W-12, IRS Paid Preparer Tax Identification Number Application, it will take 4-6 weeks to process.
For more information, visit IRS.gov.
If you are searching for the jobs online that do not require degrees
If you are searching for the jobs online that do not require degrees? Fortunately there are many online jobs which do not require special skills and that allow you to start earning immediately. Many people already doing online jobs are seeing a six figure income. There are a lot of potential opportunities for those that are willing to apply themselves. There is no such thing as get rich overnight without applying some effort. The most popular and 3 highest paid affiliate marketing jobs are:
• Starting your own online affiliate store whereby you offer the consumer products or services. This is one of the most lucrative ways to generate an income. All you need do is find a product that is in demand or a service that people are interested in. by offering these products and services you will generate at least a six figure income monthly.
• Another one of the 3 highest paid affiliate marketing jobs are freelancing. All you need do is advertise your talents to various companies. There are various freelance writing jobs, bloggers and designers. Although most companies don’t really offer much for articles. However, there are companies that offer a decent amount and pay around $250 an article whereby one can make a substantial amount of money.
• Another one of the 3 highest paid affiliate marketing jobs are paid surveys. A survey takes around 15 minutes to complete and is a lucrative business. Many companies pay around $50 a completed survey.
Besides the 3 highest paid affiliate marketing jobs mentioned, there are many others one could tap into. All you need do is some research and find a niche best suited to your needs. Do not run with any of the scams. One cannot make money overnight, dedication and effort is a needed ingredient to become successful.
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Are you really interested in making money… |
Gigi is trying to make plans to return to her native Ethiopia
By Steve Hochman, Spinner.com:
Don’t book your flights quite yet. But if you’re a world music fan (and given that you’re reading this, you probably are), there may be something happening in early January that you’d want to see.
Of course, if it happens it will be in Addis Ababa. The singer known as Gigi is trying to make plans to return to her native Ethiopia (where she was born as Ejigayehu Shibabaw) for the first time since she left in 1997, hoping to play a concert in the capital on Jan. 7 – the Ethiopian Orthodox Christmas.
When she left, she was just an aspiring performer. But after settling in the US – first in San Francisco and later New York – she became a sensation in world music and beyond, endorsed and encouraged by fellow Ethiopian expat Aster Aweke, signed by Chris Blackwell (the man who built Island Records and turned Bob Marley into a global icon) to his Palm Pictures label and produced by eclectic innovator/bassist Bill Laswell (who later became her husband). It’s a rise that, she has been told, those at home followed with great interest. This would be the first time she’d gotten to perform for her Ethiopian fans.
“I really became famous after I got here,” she says, talking from her Manhattan home. “I made one record there, but it came out after I got here. I’m not sure, but from what I’ve heard from people I have a huge following there. A lot of people know my records.”
Whether you can go or not – whether she can go or not – you can get a taste of what it might be like, as Gigi has just released a live album, ‘Mesgana Ethiopia,’ her first in-concert collection and her first of any kind in more than four years. The band behind her sports international jazz and traditional music frontliners (the latest edition of Laswell’s Material, including adventurous American drummer Hamid Drake and Senegalese percussionist Aiyb Dieng, Ethiopian-Japanese keyboardist Abegasu Shiota, Zaire-born guitarist Dominic Kanza and a two-man horn section). And with her voice a fluid, powerful instrument, Gigi revisits and recharges songs from her studio albums, along with a pair of earthy traditional Ethiopian songs and one previously unrecorded original, ‘Shemum Mune.’ … Read More & Listen @ Spinner.com
International Monetary Fund (IMF) will give Ethiopia $62.7 million
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will give Ethiopia $62.7 million from its Exogenous Shock Facility, the final tranche of a $240.2 million package.
The lender said in a statement late on Monday that Ethiopia had successfully implemented good macroeconomic policies, such as bringing soaring inflation down and building international reserves to about 2.1 months of import cover.
“Inflation has continued to decline, reflecting monetary restraint and aided by favorable weather conditions,” the IMF said in the statement on its website.
“The mild impact of the global recession on the Ethiopian economy has allowed for better performance on the external targets.”
Ethiopia, one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, on Monday said year-on-year inflation was 10.6 percent in October, compared with 64.2 percent in July 2008.
The rate has been generally declining since the government stopped state borrowing and increased bank reserves.
The Horn of Africa country also devalued its currency by 16.7 percent in September, a move the IMF said would bolster Ethiopia’s competitiveness.
The fund forecasts Ethiopia’s economy will grow by 8.0 percent this year and 8.5 percent in 2011.
© Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved
Ethiopia feeding the world but not its own
Photo: Marguerite Pettit
The African nation of Ethiopia has struggled with war, famine and drought for decades, yet today’s government is aggressively pursuing a policy that is seeing large tracts or fertile land sold to foreign entities with little or no benefit to Ethiopians. Ethiopia’s Ambassador to India Gennet Zewide is encouraging investment in agriculture at a cost to private companies she describes as ‘negligible’.
Ethiopia’s Constitution prohibits private ownership of land, instead it vests ownership and control in the State. However the Ethiopian government is offering long term leases to foreign owned entities, essentially forbidding their own citizens from land ownership while encouraging foreign possession.
The economic advantages to Ethiopians from this style of investment may be just as negligible as the cost of investment. In a country where 13 million people still rely on food aid, and the conditions for growing crops are fragile, exporting food to India and other countries will entrench existing problems.
A recent report by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization et al warns that although land in Africa may seem abundant and available existing land users often lack the means to register title or claim the land they are using. Many land users are marginalized from mechanisms allowing them to demonstrate ownership.
Understanding the scale of the development is extremely difficult due to the overlapping regional and national registers as well as the likelihood of undocumented land deals. The Oromia state investment promotion agency revealed 22 actual or existing land deals, while their national counterpart boasts 148 deals.
Indian firms are certainly not the only ones buying up valuable land in Ethiopia, the Saudi’s are also heavily investing in the region. What is troubling is that the government’s eagerness to secure such investment may come at the price of securing its citizens basic human rights to food, water and shelter. Given Ethiopia’s Constitutional view that private property rights do not exist, their willingness to lease their land to foreign owned entities is worrying.
