Iowa legislature goes 0-for-January.  The Iowa General Assembly has been completed the first three weeks of its 2013 session without settling what Iowa’s tax law is for last year.  The legislation needed to update Iowa’s 2012 tax law for the retroactive federal changes enacted in the Fiscal Cliff bill at the beginning of this year hasn’t cleared either house of the legislature.  The Senate Ways and Means Committee at least moved its bill (SF 106) out of committee Wednesday, while House Ways and Means hasn’t even done that much with its bill (HF 110)

Many Iowans were affected by the retroactive changes, including educators and people who made energy-saving home improvements.  Almost all businesses are affected by the Federal extension of $500,000 Section 179 expensing of depreciable property for 2012.  Yet these taxpayers can’t complete their Iowa 2012 tax returns until the legislature decides what parts of the federal changes to accept.

The silliest part: we pretty much know what the bill will look like.  It’s almost certain that it will adopt federal Section 179 rules and the other “extender” rules, without adopting federal “bonus depreciation.”  That means there’s no reason to dawdle.  But dawdle they do.

50 years for Wasendorf.  The Wasll Street Journal reports:

Russell Wasendorf Sr., was sentenced to the maximum 50 years in jail after admitting to orchestrating a fraud at his futures brokerage and misleading regulators for almost 20 years.

Mr. Wasendorf, 64 years old, pleaded guilty last September to the fraud at Peregrine Financial Group Inc. that federal prosecutors said had cost clients $215.5 million and masked a business that never was profitable.  He also was ordered to pay the full amount of missing funds in restitution.

Mr. Wasendorf got away with it by forging paper bank statements for the regulators and auditors.  The scam blew up when Peregrine was forced to move to electronic account verification.  Sadly, the chances of full restitution being paid to his victims are less than the chances he will walk out of prison at the end of his sentence.

But it could be worse.  Florida woman faces potential 351 years in prison for tax fraud (CPA Practice Advisor)

Kay Bell, Congressman wants answers from IRS regarding tax preparer registration

TaxGrrrl,  Wrong Side Of An Audit: Memo Argues IRS Inflated Numbers, Exaggerated Figures.  My favorite part (my emphasis):

The IRS also claimed that it would suffer unspecified “costs associated with . . . finding other positions for the 167 Service employees currently working on the return preparer project.” [Institute for Justice attorney Dan] Alban noted, in response, that just over two weeks ago, the IRS complained about understaffing, since “[o]verall full-time staffing has declined by more than 8% over the last two years, and staffing for key enforcement occupations fell nearly 6% in the past year.” You’d think that the IRS would welcome, not rue, the idea of having nearly 200 employees available for other tasks – like answering the phone (at current staff levels, they only do that about 70% of the time).

The preparer regulation program has always seemed a frivolous use of IRS resources when tax complexity and identity-theft fraud are making the tax law almost impossible to administer.

That time already?  It’s Time for Independent Certification for Tax Preparers (Robert D. Flach in Accounting Today)