Same Dress, Two Designers? Click on this link to see the flyer announcing the program we’ve put together. A three-credit Continuing Legal Education (CLE) class about protecting intellectual property in the fashion industry. (Non-lawyers are also welcome, for a nominal charge)

New York County Lawyers Association reports that more than 50 people have already signed up to attend, which is huge.

Coming up on September 8, 2011, at 6:00 PM, coinciding with the September 2011 New York City Fashion Week, the Cyberspace Law Committee of New York County Lawyers Association is putting on a Continuing Legal Education course on Intellectual Property protections in the fashion industry.

This course is for both lawyers and non-lawyers (no CLE credit for non-lawyers).

Full Disclosure: I am announcing this event because, in late 2010, I was appointed co-chair of New York County Lawyers’ Associations Cyberspace Law Committee and this is one of our projects.

Course Description:

Celebrate New York Fashion Week by joining us at a special program focusing on protecting intellectual property rights in the fashion industry. While imitation can be considered the highest form of flattery, it can also be costly, harmful to businesses – and even illegal.

Learn the ins and outs of legal protection in the fashion industry, including how Trademark, Copyright and Design-Patent laws  can be, and are used, in the United States and in Europe against copying and counterfeiting in the fashion industry.

Special focus will also be given  to new legislation, the “Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act” (IDPPA), now pending in Congress.

Faculty:
Program Co-sponsor: NYCLE Cyberspace Committee, Allan Pearlman and Natalie Sulimani, Co-Chairs   

Program Chair:Viviana Mura,  Herzfeld & Rubin P.C.

Faculty: Prof. Guillermo C. Jimenez, Fashion Institute of Technology and co-author, “Fashion Law, A Guide for Designers, Fashion Executives, and Attorneys”; Viviana Mura,  Herzfeld & Rubin P.C.; Joseph Francis Murphy, Law Office of Joseph Francis Murphy, Esq.

For more information go to www.nycla.org or to the specific page for the Same Dress, Two Designers? by clicking here.

There’s still time to keep more of your money yours, and have Uncle Sam and the IRS say “what’s yours is mine” to less of your hard-earned income.

As you probably know by now, Tax Day, which is usually April 15th every year, this year is three days later, on Monday April 18th. So the annual day of tax reckoning for most of us is this coming Monday.

This fast approaching deadline made me think of something that all too many taxpayers do. And by doing it, they unnecessarily harm themselves and cause themselves to have a bigger tax bill than they’d otherwise have.

And I’m going to share with you an easy, inexpensive, and legal way to keep a whole lot of money in your own pocket and out of Uncle Sam’s pocket.

For one ordinary taxpayer I know – I’ll call him Tom the Taxpayer* – this easy, inexpensive, and legal method would have saved him more than $5000 a year for the last five years. It can have a similarly dramatic effect for a lot of taxpayers. Perhaps even you.

What is this easy, inexpensive, and legal trick? It is this: file your tax return on time. That’s it? Yes. That’s pretty much it, though there is a little more. Paying any tax you owe on time with the filing of your return helps a lot too.

Plus, there’s something you can do if you cannot get your return prepared and filed by Tax Day. More on that in a minute.

First though, most people don’t fully appreciate all the extra charges that get piled on when you file your return late.

When I looked through the records of for our friend, Tom the Taxpayer, his IRS account activity showed that he had gotten into a bad habit of filing his tax return late every year. And so, every year, his IRS account had charges added on for this stuff:

• “Penalty for not pre-paying tax”
• “Penalty for filing tax return after the due date”
• “Penalty for late payment of tax”
• “Interest charged for late payment”

As part of Tom’s late-filing routine, he also paid his taxes late, and so, he got hit with a triple whammy of the three different penalties shown above – penalty for not prepaying, penalty for filing late, penalty for paying late, PLUS interest (maybe we should call it a “quadruple whammy”?). All unnecessary. All avoidable.

And as I describe this, I wonder: does the penalty for “not prepaying tax” and the one for paying tax late sound like double-dipping to you? I know there is a real distinction between them, and these are, in fact the rules, but still. All the more reason to avoid getting charged with them.

(And by the way, don’t believe the television ads or aggressive tax resolution company salesmen, who talk about getting rid of “penalties-and-interest,” as if it were all one thing, to the point where it sounds like one word. They are not. Penalties and interest are different from each other. They are treated differently, and different rules apply to each. While Tom might ultimately be able to persuade the IRS to undo the penalties through a penalty abatement request, interest charges almost never go away. Anyway, I digress, I’m writing about taking control of your tax life so that you avoid these penalties and interest in the first place, so you are not hoping that the good graces of the IRS will agree with your request to abate the penalties they’ve imposed.)

This triple (or quadruple) whammy of penalties plus interest really added up for our friend Tom. Over five years, these Four Horsemen of Late Filing added up to over $26,000 in penalties and interest. That’s more than $5,200 a year, more than $433 a month, more than $100 a week.

How would you like to have a “free” extra hundred bucks a week?

Our friend Tom could have legally avoided this big tax bite and kept it for himself and his family.

And so, I suggest to you, with Tax Day upon us, that you learn from Tom’s mistakes and avoid them. And by doing so, enrich yourself by owing less money to the IRS. (If you are in a state that charges income tax, you’ll need to deal with that as well.)

This year filing on time means April 18th, which is Monday.

Can’t get it together over the weekend to put your completed tax return in the mail or e-file it by this Monday? No sweat. The alternative is to get an extension by filing a request for an automatic extension, IRS form 4868.

By filing a request for an automatic extension you get six more months to file your tax return, that is, you have until October.

If you then get your tax return prepared and filed within those extended six months then you will have filed on time.

You are supposed to pay the tax that you still owe by the original deadline, Tax Day (again, this year it’s April 18th) at the same time that you file your request for an extension but if you can’t you are better off at least getting the extension and then filing within the extension period. (As the IRS itself explains in the instructions for seeking an extension “Although you are not required to make a payment of the tax you estimate as due, Form 4868 does not extend the time to pay taxes. If you do not pay the amount due by the regular due date, you will owe interest. You may also be charged penalties.”)

So, to summarize, the easy, inexpensive, and legal method to keep to keep your tax bill smaller rather than larger, and to keep Uncle Sam from saying “what’s yours is mine” about even more of your hard earned money is to file your tax return on time. Plus paying your tax on time. And if you cannot file your tax return on time, at least file an application for an automatic extension (form 4868) on time.

*Note: Tom the Taxpayer is a composite of the experiences of a number of taxpayers. The experience described, and the numbers, are real.

It’s been sounding like a love-fest, Howard Stern and satellite radio. First, Sirius crushed its competitor, XM — which it could not have done without the weight of Howard and his loyal listeners. Then the two satellite radio companies merged to become Sirius XM. This has sounded like a love-fest: Howard can do his morning radio show uncensored by regular radio stations, unthreatened by the FCC, and without endless commercials jamming up his show.

Plus, since his first day on satellite radio, in January 2006, Howard has been saying how great it is to be appreciated by his new employer. Again and again, his listeners have heard him say that he’s happy at Sirius, and that the whole set-up on satellite has allowed him and his crew to do the best radio they’ve ever done.

In December 2010, after months of a cliff-hanger for listeners, wondering whether Howard would renew his contract, he re-signed to continue his show for another five years.

But the love-fest — let’s say the honeymoon at least — seems to be over. Today, Howard Stern, through his production company, One Twelve, Inc. (named for his birthday, January 12th), and his agent, Don Buchwald, sued Sirius XM in New York State Supreme Court for breach of contract.

The 21-page complaint alleges that Sirius XM has failed to pay Howard’s company performance based stock awards and has also failed to pay Buchwald an agreed upon consulting fee.

Is this why Howard has been complaining of insomnia in the last week.

Serious (not Sirius) Howard Stern listeners may now be wondering, where is Steve Langford? Where is Lisa G? Will Howard 100 News tell us about “all things Howard” including this?

(Special thanks to loyal listener and editor extraordinaire, Missy H. )

The great Bob McKenzie (the tax lawyer in Chicago, not the hockey guy, not the fictional Canadian on SCTV) told me these:

“The company accountant is shy and retiring. He’s shy a quarter of a million dollars. That’s why he’s retiring.”

• Milton Berle

and

Question: What does an accountant use for birth control?

Answer: His personality.

While much of my attention, when it comes to jokes about professions, is focused on lawyer jokes (e.g., What do you call a 52 seat bus with 50 lawyers on it which drives off a cliff? ….), I always ask other professionals what jokes there are about them (e.g., Two optometrists walk into a bar….)

So, it feels like a gift to be told a few accountant jokes.

And with many of us having an accountant as our new best friend in February or March, it could not have come at a better time. I think Bob was not unaware of this.

A lawyer friend emailed me the following bit of history:

“And God said:

‘Let there be Satan, so people don’t blame everything on me.

‘And let there be lawyers, so people don’t blame everything on Satan.’”

– as told to George Burns

This is in the non-tax-related area of law:

I’m writing to tell you about – and invite you to come to – a free panel discussion (aka “Public Forum”) on a topic important to anyone who runs or wants to run a website or blog, and to lawyers who advise website owners or bloggers, or both.

A little more information: The forum is entitled:

“Click on the Dotted Line:

Internet Website Privacy Policies,

Terms of Use and Service, and Disclaimers –

Can all that stuff you never read actually hurt you?”

It’s taking place on Tuesday April 27, 2010 at 6 PM at New York County Lawyers’ Association (NYCLA), which is downtown, near City Hall, at 14 Vesey Street, New York, NY. NYCLA’s Cyberspace Law Committee is putting on this forum and I will be moderating it.

What’s it about? This forum will discuss the enforceability of website terms, good practices in developing those terms, as well as pitfalls for website owners, businesses, and their attorneys in identifying issues, developing policies, and drafting the “fine print” terms for websites.

Who will be speaking? There will be

• a director of and counsel to the consumer watchdog organization, the Better Business Bureau (BBB),
• a consultant to businesses for developing the policies which underlie website terms and policies,
• the general counsel to a large website doing substantial online commerce and social networking (a sort of facebook for artists, craftspeople, and their customers), and
• an Intellectual Property and Internet attorney who drafts terms and policies for websites and the businesses or entrepreneurs who own them. (See the list of speakers, below, and also see the flyer for this forum, which is attached, as a pdf file)
• plus, the forum will be moderated by me (appeals lawyer, tax lawyer, civil litigator, longtime member of the Cyberspace Law Committee’s executive committee)

Where and when is it taking place?

WHERE: New York County Lawyers Association

14 Vesey Street

New York, NY 10007

WHEN: Tuesday, April 27th, 2010, 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

What does it cost? This Public Forum is FREE of charge and open to the public.

Do I need a ticket? No, you do not need a ticket. And it’s free of charge. You can just show up;

BUT, NYCLA does request that you RSVP by sending an email to dlamb@nycla.org with the phrase “April 27 forum” in the subject line

What are the names of the speakers and what’s their background?

Sarah Feingold, Esq. — General Counsel to Etsy.com, an online marketplace for hand-crafted items and artwork

Ester Horowitz — Privacy, Identity Theft and Fraud-Prevention Consultant

Brian Rauer, Esq. — Executive Director, Better Business Bureau (BBB), Mid-Hudson and Long Island regions and General Counsel, BBB Serving Metro New York

Natalie Sulimani, Esq. — Internet and Intellectual Property Attorney and Principal, Sulimani Law Firm

Moderator: Allan R. Pearlman, Esq. — Tax, Civil Litigation and Appeals Attorney and Author of http://LifeLawandTaxes.com

I hope you can come, and that if you have friends or colleagues who are interested in internet law and the legal issues surrounding running a website or blog, that they might come. Please forward this email and/or tell anyone you know who might be interested in this topic about this forum. Thanks.

Criminals who dress up as cops sometimes get a whole lot of crimes done. Similarly, internet email scamsters have been pretending to be the Internal Revenue Service for a while as well.

In this scam, a criminal sends an email which is supposed to look like it’s from the IRS. This fraudulent email asks you to click on a link to review your account, get a refund, or something, but the goal is actually to extract from your personal information, by which your identity can be stolen, or to commit some other nefarious crime which will only hurt you (like perhaps to take control of your computer and use it as a zombie bot which becomes an unwitting conduit for spam).

In any event, this sort of scam, often to accomplish identity theft has been on the IRS’s “Dirty Dozen” annual list of top tax scams for five years in a row … ever since 2006.

I just received one of these scam emails. it looks like this:

Taxpayer ID: arp-00000177112725US
Tax Type: INCOME TAX
Issue: Unreported/Underreported Income (Fraud Application)

Please review your tax statement on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website (click on the link below):

review tax statement for taxpayer id: arp-00000177112725US <http://www.irs.gov.foodyt.com.pl/fraud.applications/application/statement.php?email=[redacted]@[email-address-redacted].com&tid=arp-00000177112725US>
Internal Revenue Service

(Note that the email address shown in the quote above has been redacted].

The bottom line here is: don’t trust emails which claim to be from the IRS. The IRS does not communicate with taxpayers by email. An email which looks like its from the IRS is fake and nothing good can come from clicking on any link included in such an email.

For all the reasons there are to dislike and sometimes even distrust about the IRS and the way it behaves, it is on the right side of this issue. The IRS explains in its 2010 list of the “Dirty Dozen” tax scams that “phishing” is a serious problem and danger:

Phishing

Phishing is a tactic used by scam artists to trick unsuspecting victims into revealing personal or financial information online. IRS impersonation schemes flourish during the filing season and can take the form of e-mails, tweets or phony Web sites. Scammers may also use phones and faxes to reach their victims.

Scam artists will try to mislead consumers by telling them they are entitled to a tax refund from the IRS and that they must reveal personal information to claim it. Criminals use the information they get to steal the victim’s identity, access bank accounts, run up credit card charges or apply for loans in the victim’s name.

Taxpayers who receive suspicious e-mails claiming to come from the IRS should not open any attachments or click on any of the links in the e-mail. Suspicious e-mails claiming to be from the IRS or Web addresses that do not begin with http://www.irs.gov should be forwarded to the IRS mailbox: phishing@irs.gov.

Don’t believe and don’t fall for emails which claim to be from the IRS. They aren’t. And they only mean to do you harm.

A religious leader in Vancouver, Washington has a lot of atoning to do for his less-than-spiritual relationship to material things and the lure of filthy lucre.

Until last September, Maximo Garza, 47, was the pastor for Victory Outreach Church of Portland, a non-denominational church which has operated in Portland, Oregon, for more than 15 years. Garza was sentenced to five months in prison for aiding the preparation of a false tax return.

During his plea hearing, Garza admitted he provided false expense invoices which purported to reflect public relations and other services provided by Victory Outreach Church to William Thompson, who was then operating a mail-order divorce service using the name Hallwood Inc.

Thompson used the false invoices to take expense deductions on tax returns filed by Hallwood in order to fraudulently reduce his tax liability. Thompson pled guilty to tax evasion and was sentenced to a prison term in 2007.

Between 2001 and 2003, Garza provided invoices reflecting a total of $735,441 in false business expenses. Thompson agreed to let Garza keep approximately 10% of the expense amounts.

Where are those scarce government resources going?

The Internal Revenue Service employs approximately 88,000 full time staff. This is two and a half times as many as the FBI.

Then, what about Spies v. Bean counters? Incomparable! The number of the CIA’s staff cannot “at present, be publicly disclosed.”   So says cia.gov.