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.

With 48 hours left before the final deadline to participate in a voluntary disclosure program designed get taxpayers with unreported foreign bank accounts to come back into the system and report their foreign income, the IRS has announced that it is extending the deadline from Wednesday September 23, 2009 until October 15, 2009.

The IRS reports that this extension was made in response to repeated requests from attorneys and other tax practitioners from all over the country.

In addition, an IRS agent working on a team evaluating the disclosures being submitted by taxpayers trying to participate in this program told me that there was a huge volume of submissions.

Within the guidelines of this program, taxpayers are given an opportunity to avoid criminal prosecution for tax crimes such as tax evasion and tax fraud.

Also, as part of this program, a taxpayer is subject to paying penalties on previously unreported income in foreign bank accounts under guidelines defined earlier this year, in March 2009. These guidelines are tough and expensive, but not nearly as tough or expensive as the sort of penalties a taxpayer would be facing if not working within this program.

In the wake of master swindler and former NASDAQ chairman, Bernard Madoff’s $65-billion dollar, multi-decade, worldwide Ponzi scheme, it might seem like scams are popping up everywhere one looks..

In this context, in January, 2009, a U.S. Justice Department announcement reports that Ponzi-schemer-or-collaborator Shirley G. Graybill, 72, of North Haven, Conn., was sentenced to two years of probation — the first four months of which she must spend in home confinement. She had pleaded guilty in June, 2005 to one count of making and subscribing to a false 2002 tax return.

What happened between the June 2005 guilty plea and the three-and-a-half-year later sentencing announcement?

According to court records, the Triple Diamond Foundation was an entity created by Graybill and her husband, Dale L. Graybill, purportedly to fund cancer research, but which did not have tax-exempt status from the IRS. The Graybills controlled the Triple Diamond Foundation and its bank account. And apparently, they were quite adept at using that bank account.

During the 2002 tax year, the Graybills transferred about $350,000 from the Triple Diamond Foundation account, used those funds as income, but failed to pay federal taxes amounting to almost $93,300.

The Justice Department also reports that on October 13, 2003, Graybill filed a tax return with the IRS in which she failed to claim her actual taxable income, “when in fact she knew it to be approximately $316,519.79.”

Does anyone else find government-style reporting uniquely interesting in its departures from common sense? The Justice Department is reporting that schemer Graybill knew her taxable income was “approximately $316,519.79.”

“Approximately”?

When was the last time anyone you know has come up with a nice round number like “approximately” $316,519.79?

I know: approximately 4.7 people did roughly that just about 3.24 weeks ago.

Returning to the Graybills: they also must pay $93,293 to the Internal Revenue Service. In addition, Dale Graybill was sentenced to 48 months in prison following his conviction on one count of mail fraud stemming from his operation of a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme in which he solicited investments for fictitious investment programs.

Dale Graybill was also ordered to pay his victims restitution exceeding $10.6 Million dollars. And these consequences do not include what they will also owe in Connecticut state income tax.

So, leaving aside the unique style-book that the government uses, not only was the conduct of the Graybills illegal, for which they are now subject to the consequences (“the weed of crime bares bitter fruit” said The Shadow), but it also is double-plus-ungood.

A couple weeks ago, in early February, I signed up with article repository website, ezinearticles.com. I submitted a modified version of an article seen first here (yes, folks, you saw it here first), the article, “IRS to Bail Out Taxpayers?” A few days after that, I submitted two more articles, both about federal tax liens.

A week and a half later, yesterday, ezinearticles.com emailed me to say that my status as “basic” contributor had been upgraded to “expert.”

Ezinearticles.com’s published rules say that authors must submit ten articles before being eligible to be elevated to expert status. But me they did it upon approval of my second article.

It seems that their rules are flexible, and they liked what they saw.

They also promise to spread my articles around, syndicating them and putting them on their main homepage. Nice news.

And they gave me access to a page with html badges to publicize that I am an “expert author” and a “featured author.” Here is what a couple of these banners look like:

I’d like to put one of these banners into the sidebar of this blog, but after a few tries I’m stumped. How to do it?

This is a self-hosted wordpress blog and all sorts of things about making it are easy. This is one thing which is not. If anyone knows how to get the code for one of these banners into the a sidebar, I’d be grateful for the help.

Please let me know.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging! The previous three sentences is the canned welcome, courtesy of WordPress. Now to see if there’s room in the world for a few thoughts about taxes, law, and at risk of sounding grandiose, life….