“Keep IRS auditors away: Earn less than $200,000″

Want to keep IRS auditors away? Keep your earnings under $200,000 and they won’t bother you 99 percent of the time.

IRS enforcement numbers, released Tuesday, show that returns under that amount have a 1 percent chance of getting audited.

Returns showing income of $200,000 and above have a nearly 3 percent audit chance. The percentage jumps to more than 6 percent for returns showing earnings of $1 million or more.

The percentages apply to both individual and joint returns.

The number of audits jumped 11 percent from 2008 to 2009 for returns with earnings of $200,000 or more, but rose 30 percent for returns showing earnings of $1 million or more. For those under $200,000 the number of audits remained steady.

The IRS conducted 1.4 million audits of individual returns in the financial year ended Sept. 30, with more than 1 million conducted through correspondence with the taxpayer. The others were conducted through face-to-face meetings with IRS auditors.

The IRS does not do random audits, but does conduct “research audits”

that will test compliance in business tax categories. In 2010, the target will be payroll taxes, according to Steve Miller, deputy commissioner for enforcement.

What happens if you’re audited while unemployed? The IRS may give you a break.

“While our assessments were up, the ability to pay went down drastically” due to the economy, Miller said. “We have a series of tools. We can have them pay partially, over time. If the money is not collectible, it’s treated as non-collectible. It’s going to depend on each case.

“We have to ensure there’s a balance between our responsibility to collect taxes with economic realities. We give people more time and determine how fast they can pay and whether they can pay.”

The total revenue collected from IRS enforcement actions, $48.9 billion in 2009, is a drop from $56.4 billion in 2008 and $59.2 billion in 2007.

Miller said the higher numbers in 2007 and 2008 reflect collections from settlements of several major tax shelter cases and other enforcement actions.

In 2007, for example, the IRS resolved disputed tax issues with drug maker Merck & Co., Inc. and its subsidiaries. Merck has agreed to pay approximately $2.3 billion in federal tax, net interest and penalties to resolve issues that had been in dispute for tax years 1993-2001.

The resolution was one of the largest achieved in recent years by the IRS and a taxpayer through the examination process.

The IRS has stepped up its examination of tax-exempt organizations, checking the books of more than 10,000 groups in 2009 compared to 7,800 the previous year.

The number of business tax returns examined was down slightly in 2009 from the previous year.

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“The American Graduation Initiative”

The American Graduation Initiative will build on the strengths of community colleges and usher in new innovations and reforms for the 21st century economy.

It will:

Call for 5 Million Additional Community College Graduates: President Obama called for America to once again lead the world in college degrees by 2020. Affordable, open-enrollment community colleges will play a critical role in meeting that goal. He has set a complementary goal: an additional 5 million community college graduates by 2020, including students who earn certificates and associate degrees or who continue on to graduate from four-year colleges and universities.

Create the Community College Challenge Fund: Too often community colleges are underfunded and underappreciated, lacking the resources they need to improve instruction, build ties with businesses, and adopt other reforms. Under President Obama’s plan, new competitive grants would enable community colleges and states to innovate and expand proven reforms. These efforts will be evaluated carefully, and the approaches that demonstrate improved educational and employment outcomes will receive continued federal support and become models for widespread adoption.

Colleges could:

Build partnerships with businesses and the workforce investment system to create career pathways where workers can earn new credentials and promotions step-by-step, worksite education programs to build basic skills, and curriculum coordinated with internship and job placements.

Expand course offerings and offer dual enrollment at high schools and universities, promote the transfer of credit among colleges, and align graduation and entrance requirements of high schools, community colleges, and four-year colleges and universities.

Improve remedial and adult education programs, accelerating students’ progress and integrating developmental classes into academic and vocational classes.

Offer their students more than just a course catalog, through comprehensive, personalized services to help them plan their careers and stay in school.

In addition, the initiative will support a new research center with a mission to develop and implement new measures of community colleges’

success so prospective students and businesses could get a clear sense of how effective schools are in helping students — including the most disadvantaged — learn, graduate, and secure good jobs.

• Fund Innovative Strategies to Promote College Completion: Nearly

half of students who enter community college intending to earn a degree or transfer to a four-year college fail to reach their goal within six years. The College Access and Completion Fund will finance the innovation, evaluation, and expansion of efforts to increase college graduation rates and close achievement gaps, including those at community colleges. Promising approaches include performance-based scholarships, learning communities of students, professors and counselors, colleges tailored to promote the success of working adults, and funding formulas based on student progress and success as well as initial enrollment. Resources would also be provided to improve states’ efforts to track student progress, completion, and success in the workplace.

• Modernize Community College Facilities: Often built decades ago, community colleges are struggling to keep up with rising enrollments. Many colleges face large needs due to deferred maintenance or lack the modern facilities and equipment needed to train students in technical and other growing fields. Insufficient classroom space can force students to delay needed courses and reduce completion rates.

President Obama is proposing a new $2.5 billion fund to catalyze $10 billion in community college facility investments that will expand the colleges’ ability to meet employer and student needs. The resources could be used to pay the interest on bonds or other debt, seed capital campaigns, or create state revolving loan funds.

• Create a New Online Skills Laboratory: Online educational software has the potential to help students learn more in less time than they would with traditional classroom instruction alone. Interactive software can tailor instruction to individual students like human tutors do, while simulations and multimedia software offer experiential learning. Online instruction can also be a powerful tool for extending learning opportunities to rural areas or working adults who need to fit their coursework around families and jobs. New open online courses will create new routes for students to gain knowledge, skills and credentials. They will be developed by teams of experts in content knowledge, pedagogy, and technology and made available for modification, adaptation and sharing. The Departments of Defense, Education, and Labor will work together to make the courses freely available through one or more community colleges and the Defense Department’s distributed learning network, explore ways to award academic credit based upon achievement rather than class hours, and rigorously evaluate the results.

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RONALD MC DONALD HOUSE CHARITIES – Deadline 2/16/2010

The Ronald McDonald House Charities U.S. Scholarship Program seeks to invest in students who are exemplary role models in their communities and have the initiative to fulfill their educational goals.

To help them accomplish this, the network of U.S. Chapters, along with RMHC Global, offers scholarships to students in financial need who have demonstrated both academic achievement and community involvement.

Scholarships are for students in the United States, living in areas where there are participating local Chapters.

Apply at www.rmhc.org.

KFC COLONEL’S SCHOLARS – Deadline 2/10/2010

KFC Colonel’s Scholars is looking for outstanding seniors with financial need and entrepreneurial spirit.

Awards are up to $20,000 for tuition, fees, textbooks, and room and board.

Students must have at least a 2.75 GPA, plan to enroll in a public college/university within their state, plan to pursue a bachelor’s degree, be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, and demonstrate financial need.

Visit www.kfcscholars.org or call 866-KFC-7240 for more information.

ANNE FRANK AWARDS (STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS) – Deadline 1/15/2010

Applicants must be graduating high school seniors who are community leaders and have been accepted to a four-year college.

The winning applicant receives a $10,000 scholarship; runners up receive $1,000.

The award recognizes students who exemplify the commitment, ideals and courage that Anne Frank represents today.

Examples of such activities include, Acting as spokespersons for tolerance; On a daily basis, having the courage to be bridge builders and peacemakers; Creating and/or participating in programs that address intolerance, violence prevention and conflict resolution; Standing up against intolerance by leading or participating in community-based organizations.

http://www.annefrank.com/

YOUNG EPIDEMIOLOGY SCHOLARS – Deadline 2/1/2010

The Young Epidemiology Scholars (YES) Competition for original student research is designed to inspire students to investigate the behavioral, biological, environmental, and social factors that affect health and, based upon this knowledge, to identify ways to improve the health of the public.

The YES Competition awards up to 120 college scholarships each year to high school juniors and seniors who conduct research projects that apply epidemiological methods of analysis to a health-related issue.

Epidemiologists seek answers to why some people get sick and others don’t. In other words, epidemiology is the science of exploring patterns of disease, illness, and injury within populations with the goal of developing methods for prevention, control, and treatment to improve health.

http://www.collegeboard.com/yes/

PROJECT MATH MINDS – Deadline 3/15/2010

The Actuarial Foundation has joined with Mu Alpha Theta, the National High School and Two-Year College Mathematics Honor Society, to implement Project Math Minds, a new actuarial-related project that for high school students.

Students compete for college scholarship money provided by The Actuarial Foundation.

Winners will present their results at the Mu Alpha Theta National Convention to other members of the Honor Society.

http://www.actfnd.org/programs/youth/math_minds.shtml

SAE ENGINEERING & SCIENCE SCHOLARSHIPS – Deadline 1/15/2010

SAE offers various of awards, scholarships, loans and internships for engineering students through the SAE Foundation.

Scholarships are available for both undergraduate and graduate engineering students.

SAE Scholarships Include: BMW / SAE Engineering Scholarship (renewable) SAE Detroit Section Technical Scholarship (renewable) SAE / Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies Scholarship (freshman year only) Edward D. Hendrickson/SAE Engineering Scholarship (renewable) Tau Beta Pi / SAE Engineering Scholarship (freshman year only) TMC / SAE Donald D. Dawson Technical Scholarship (renewable) SAE Women Engineers Committee Scholarship (freshman year only) Fred M. Young Sr./SAE Engineering Scholarship (renewable)

http://students.sae.org/awdscholar/scholarships/

PRINCETON PRIZE IN RACE RELATIONS – Deadline: 1/31/2010

The Princeton Prize in Race Relations seeks to honor students in grades 9-12 who are doing outstanding work in their communities or schools to advance the cause of improving race relations.

http://www.princeton.edu/pprize/

HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE ESSAY AWARD – Deadline: 04/12/2010

The Holocaust Remembrance Project is a national essay contest for high school students designed to encourage and promote the study of the Holocaust.

The Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation provides the resources for the operation of this project.

First-place winning students, teachers, and Holocaust survivors participate in an all-expense paid trip to a leading Holocaust Museum. In addition, scholarships of up to $5,000 will be awarded to the first-place national winners.

Since the project’s inception in 1995, the Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation has awarded more than $1,000,000 in scholarships and prizes. Tens of thousands of high school students have participated as researchers and writers. Selected teachers are asked to join the scholarship week, and are provided with teaching materials and specialized symposia.

http://holocaust.hklaw.com/

“OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!” SCHOLARSHIP – Deadline: 02/15/2010

Essay contest based on Dr. Seuss’s “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”

http://origin-www.seussville.com/ohtheplaces/

DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION – Deadline: Varies

Multiple achievement-based scholarships

http://www.dar.org/natsociety/edout_scholar.cfm#general

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Sex bias probe in colleges’ selections

Yep, colleges do discriminate between male and female students. Here is an article from the Washington Post.

Panel to study whether men are favored in area schools’ admissions By Daniel de Vise

Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, December 14, 2009

Civil rights investigators will soon begin reviewing admissions data from a sampling of colleges in the Washington region to determine whether, after decades of progress toward sexual equity, female students have become so plentiful in higher education that institutions have entered a new era of discrimination against them.

Women apply in greater numbers than men to most colleges in the D.C. area. They make up at least three-fifths of the applicant pool at a number of schools, including the College of William and Mary in Virginia, Goucher and St. Mary’s colleges in Maryland and American University in the District.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that some schools are favoring men by admitting them at higher rates than women to try to preserve a male-female balance on campus. Conventional admissions-office wisdom dictates that colleges dominated by either sex are less appealing to applicants in general.

William and Mary admitted 43 percent of its male applicants and 29 percent of its female applicants in fall 2008, according to its institutional data. Vassar College in New York’s Hudson Valley admitted 34 percent of the men who applied and 21 percent of the women. Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania admitted 19 percent of male applicants and 14 percent of female applicants. Wesleyan University in Connecticut admitted 30 percent of the men and 25 percent of the women. Female applicants far outnumbered male candidates at all four schools.

“At some ambiguous tipping point, an institution may begin to appeal to a narrower demographic if it begins to appear more like a single-sex environment,” Henry Broaddus, dean of admission at William and Mary, wrote in a November posting to The Washington Post’s blog The Answer Sheet. Broaddus is one of the few college admission officers who have publicly acknowledged balance between sexes as a legitimate interest in assembling a freshman class. He said that men admitted to William and Mary rival women in academic credentials, even with a higher admission rate.

Comments such as his, disseminated in op-ed pieces and news articles, prompted a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to call for an investigation. In an August proposal, Commissioner Gail Heriot wrote of potential discrimination by sex as an “open secret” that demanded further study.

“Privately at least, some college administrators argue that they must discriminate against women or the gender balance at their institutions will become so off-kilter that many of the women they want won’t be willing to attend,” she wrote. “Colleges will then be unable to attract the female students they want most — or so they fear.”

Over the past 40 years, women have gone from underrepresented minority to overrepresented majority on U.S. college campuses, where they outnumber men by a proportion approaching 60-40. Barriers that kept women from college have been swept away, and scholarly focus has shifted to the impediments facing men, who are more likely to drop out of school and more apt to go into the military, manual-labor jobs or prison.

“It’s always going to be an issue because there are not enough men in the pipeline,” said Gil Villanueva, dean of admission at the University of Richmond, another liberal arts school with a preponderance of female applicants.

The tipping point is not a figment of some dean’s imagination. Rebecca Guterman, a senior at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, knows she might have a more difficult time gaining admission to some colleges because she is female. She wouldn’t want to attend a school dominated by high-achieving women like herself.

“I don’t know the exact percentage, for me, where it would be too much,” she said. “But I think if a school were, like, 80 percent female, that’s pushing it, because that’s just too many girls.”

The federal commission approved a civil rights investigation in September. On Wednesday, commissioners are expected to approve a slate of 12 to 18 schools for study. Commission spokeswoman Lenore Ostrowsky said all of the colleges are nonprofit, non-seminary, four-year institutions that have more than 1,000 students, are at least moderately selective and are within 100 miles of Washington, an area chosen for its proximity to the commission. More distant schools, including William and Mary, will not be investigated.

An informal analysis by The Post of admission data for a dozen public and private colleges in the Washington area over the past two years found seven — University of Maryland campuses in College Park and Baltimore County; William and Mary; Johns Hopkins; George Washington University; St. Mary’s College of Maryland; and the University of Richmond — that admitted women at a lower rate than men in both 2007 and 2008. In some cases, the gap between male and female admission rates was minute.

Four other schools — American University, the University of Virginia, George Mason University and Goucher College — admitted women at a higher rate than men in those years. At the 12th school, Washington and Lee University, women were admitted at a lower rate one year, and higher in the other.

Private undergraduate colleges may legally discriminate by sex, a protection that allows single-sex institutions to endure. Public colleges may not. If a state-supported school such as U-Md. or William and Mary were found to be setting a higher standard for women, “that would be illegal,” Ostrowsky said.

The commission lacks enforcement power but can refer complaints to other agencies for action and can recommend changes to federal law.

Civil rights investigators will request a range of data from each of the chosen schools to determine the relative academic merits of male and female applicants who were admitted, wait-listed or rejected, as well as the kind and amount of aid offered to applicants. The investigation might lead to a public briefing with witness testimony, or it could end less dramatically with only a written report. If schools cooperate, the work could be finished in six months, Ostrowsky said.

According to higher-education leaders, investigators will be hard-pressed to find a college, public or private, that is intentionally favoring one sex over the other. Most of the region’s selective colleges practice “holistic” admissions, a process that considers each applicant as an individual, and as a whole, rather than as a sum of grades, test scores and demographic traits, in the quest to build a diverse class.

“In terms of importance, an applicant’s gender is near the bottom of the list of factors considered,” said Tony Pals, spokesman for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in the District.

Some D.C. area colleges have widened their gender gap by admitting women at higher rates than men. American, for example, admitted 55 percent of female applicants in 2008 and 50 percent of male applicants, even though more than three-fifths of its applicants were women.

American University passed the 60-40 tipping point years ago, said Sharon Alston, executive director for enrollment management at AU. She sees little evidence that prospective students are deterred. She concedes that things might be different if AU were a remote rural campus, rather than one in a sprawling metropolis.

“We’re not seeing it as a turnoff,” she said. “It’s something that the university has embraced. We are who we are.”

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