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In today’s strained economic conditions with high unemployment, many individuals are withdrawing money from their IRAs before reaching age 59½ . When paid tax preparers encounter these situations, there are several considerations in determining the correct tax consequences.

Taxpayers should prepare for owing income tax on their IRA distributions at an early age. In most cases, there’s an additional 10 percent penalty for distributions before age 59½.  However, there are conditions that provide exemption from the penalty. Consequently, tax professionals go over a tax preparation checklist to identify if any penalty exceptions that apply. The two most commonly encountered penalty exemptions are use of IRA funds for education expenses and home purchase.

Registered Tax Return Preparer work requires uncovering details about a taxpayer’s situation to determine if an IRA withdrawal is penalty-free. For example, there is no penalty for IRA withdrawals to cover the costs of higher education. This does not only apply to the schooling costs of the taxpayer. The penalty exemption is also applicable when IRA money is used for the qualified educational costs of a taxpayer’s spouse, children, or grandchildren.

An RTRP must determine that the school is accredited as a college, university, vocational school or other post-secondary institution meeting federal student aid program requirements. A taxpayer can spend money from the IRA on tuition and fees at the school as well as books, supplies and required equipment. Even room and board expenses count if the student is at least a half-time student living away from a permanent residence.

The other popular situation where an IRA withdrawal escapes the 10 percent tax penalty is for first-time homebuyers. Up to $10,000 of IRA money is available for these taxpayers. In fact, when the home is purchased by a married couple, each spouse can withdraw $10,000 from separate IRAs – resulting in $20,000 of penalty-free distributions.

Tax professionals learn to follow the tax preparation guide for definition of a first-time homebuyer. The home purchase may qualify for first-time status even when it is not technically the initial residence owned by a taxpayer. According to the tax rules, anyone who hasn’t owned a principal residence during the preceding two years is a first-time homebuyer.

In addition, the penalty exception for IRA distributions applies to first-time home purchases by a taxpayer’s spouse, child, grandchild, or parent. The IRA funds may apply to covering a down payment as well as settlement and closing costs.

Roth IRAs operate a little differently. A taxpayer may still withdraw $10,000 under the first-time homebuyer exception. But, this distribution is exempt from both the 10 percent penalty as well as regular income tax under certain conditions. If the taxpayer is 59½ and the IRA has existed for at least 5 years, there is no tax owed. If those conditions don’t exist, regular tax is payable but the penalty exemption still applies. However, a Roth IRA withdrawal that’s a return of original contributions qualifies as a totally tax-exempt distribution.

The tax CPE instructions for reporting IRA distributions address completion of Form 5329. The specific tax treatment of money withdrawn from an IRA is reported on this form. Fortunately, the tax knowledge of an RTRP can uncover cases that are exempt from tax assessments.

IRS Circular 230 Disclosure

Pursuant to the requirements of the Internal Revenue Service Circular 230, we inform you that, to the extent any advice relating to a Federal tax issue is contained in this communication, including in any attachments, it was not written or intended to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (a) avoiding any tax related penalties that may be imposed on you or any other person under the Internal Revenue Code, or (b) promoting, marketing or recommending to another person any transaction or matter addressed in this communication.

When it comes to the work at home profession and the medical field there are a great deal of concerns when it comes to how safe and how private is the patient’s vital information when it comes to their medical care. Billing and coding professionals is a very closely watched group when it comes to these questions on patient privacy. While this is a normal concern with billers and coders that work in a medical facility but this concern is heightened when it comes to those of you who work from home on your own computer.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 Regulations and Rules
Any and all in the billing and coding field work from home or not have to understand and commit to the rules and regulations set forth by HIPPA. Failure to comply with the rules and regulation can have some detrimental consequences on you as a person and on the future of your career in any field where you are dealing with patient or customer privacy. HIPPA in short offer any one whose medical information is going to be provided to a medical office is protected by the federal government.

According to the HIPPA laws the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) and the Office of Inspector General OIG) have to assist in enforcing these laws. Just like billing and coding specialists that work at a medical office you will be dealing with patients that from various backgrounds and with various health insurance carriers and plans from Medicaid, Tricare, Medicare, private and commercial insurance companies. Great care needs to be shown since there is a wealth of private information included in the insurance plans and not just in their medical records.

Work at home medical billing and coding jobs are out there but they are very difficult to find, so if you want to ensure a successful career in the at home field it is up to you to make sure you are dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t’. Follow the rules and the regulations since they are there to protect you, the patient and the provider. The best way to look at it is if you were to put yourself in the patients shoes, your medical records has your home address, social security number, ID number and even possibly the name and phone numbers of close families and friends. Would you want your information laid out for anyone and everyone to see? This could put you at risk for identity theft among other things.

Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity changed the way we understand the world. Now, Abrar Ahmed ’13 is working with Associate Professor of Physics Seth Major on thought experiments that would modify Einstein’s Special Relativity. They are exploring the consequences of the idea that, at really high energies, light travels at a slower speed than the constant speed of light that is a centerpiece of the way we understand the world.

This constancy is one postulate of Einstein’s theory: light has the same speed in every uniformly moving frame. In other words, observers always measure the speed of light as one speed independent of their state of uniform motion. This is possible only because, in Einsteins words, “time is suspect”; there is no absolute time agreed upon by all observers. The speed of light is the fastest possible speed at which anything can travel.

Albert Einstein used theoretical or thought experiments to support of his work, even though these experiments were not viable in a laboratory setting. Later on, researchers were able to successfully carry out some of Einstein’s related experiments, providing observational support for his theories. In this way it is possible to design experiments entirely outside the lab, laying a foundation for future work and discoveries.

Ahmed and Major are working to modify this theory with regards to the constancy of the speed of light and check the consistency of the resulting framework. The process of conducting research for this project is outside the lab.

Earlier William Kalbacker ’11 worked on a related project as his senior thesis project. Though relativity is difficult at times, Ahmed explains that he was drawn to the project for the simplicity of the thought experiments and mathematical framework. As a physics major, he is very interested in the subject matter, and was helped by reading Kalbacker’s paper.

In his free time, Ahmed enjoys reading, movies and drawing. He participates in the Gaming Club on campus.

Abrar Ahmed is a graduate of Mastermind School in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

  OLYMPIA, Wash. Four Washington State University faculty members have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences, honoring their scientific achievements and tapping them for advice on science policy in the state.   Agricultural economist and plant biologist will join 22 others from around the state when they are inducted at the academys fourth annual meeting in Seattle Sept. 22. They will bring the academys total membership to 154.   “Its certainly an honor to be elected to a group of well known and established scientists, said Marsh, a professor in the WSU School of Economic Sciences and director of the schools IMPACT Center, which addresses economic, social, political, and technical problems affecting Washington agriculture. “As an economist, I look forward to working with individuals on policy questions where I can contribute from a social and economic-impact point of view.   Marsh, who also sits on the faculty of the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health, has spent much of the past decade studying the economic effects of plant and animal diseases in the U.S. and abroad.   Edwards, a Regents professor in WSUs School of Biological Sciences, studies photosynthesis, including the effects of environmental stress and potential global climate change. He is currently involved in a consortium of scientists working to improve rice production and water use in stressed conditions.   Edwards said he is looking forward to the outreach and education role of being an academy member, which can range from activities promoting the sciences to advising on science-related issues.   Also elected to the academy were:

• , chief scientist in the Biological Sciences Division of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and an adjunct professor in WSUs Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering.
• , director of the Computational Sciences and Mathematics Division of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and adjunct professor at WSUs School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.