The Ohio Department of Taxation (ODT) is fighting tax fraud at the expense of timely returns.

If you haven’t filed your tax return by now, you should probably consider filing for an extension. It is a lot easier to file for an extension than it is to amend a return later for a mistake you made trying to rush your return to completion. Even more costly is if the IRS finds a mistake you made and assesses underpayment penalties and interest.

A taxpayer we will call Clint, decided to do his daughter a favor. She was attempting to purchase a home that was in foreclosure. Part of the qualification to buy the home was having a substantial amount of funds on deposit. Clint took an IRA distribution and deposited part of it in a non-IRA escrow account. He intended to rollover the distribution back into the IRA upon the completed purchase of his daughter's home.

After being proposed by Gov. Kasich, the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation Board of Directors has now approved a nearly $1 billion rebate to employers in Ohio who were part of the state fund workers’ compensation coverage from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012.

The use tax was enacted in 1936, one year after Ohio sales tax went into effect. Since then all individuals and businesses have been subject to paying use taxes. The problem is, very few individuals and businesses are paying this tax.

The recently enacted 2012-2013 budget that Gov. Kasich signed into law includes a provision that eliminates the Ohio estate tax. Before this repeal, Ohio taxed anyone who died with assets above $338,333 at a tax rate of up to 7%. This was the lowest exemption amount of any state in the United States.