Digital age-infused financial crimes against businesses are the focus of a free, single-day seminar forthcoming from Justice for Fraud Victims (JFV) at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business in cooperation with the Prince George’s County Police Department’s Financial Crimes Unit. The seminar, Business Fraud Prevention, takes place 8:30 a.m.- 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 3, 2023, at the College Park Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, 3501 University Blvd., E. Adelphi, Md.

The risk in crypto investing resurfaced prominently last month, related to former Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky’s arrest on criminal and civil charges stemming from his activity with the now bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform.

Every few months the Internal Revenue Service warns about fraudsters sending out emails (phishing) or text messages (smishing) from what are not IRS points of origin, but cleverly appear to be. The newest IRS advisory describes a scheme that Smith’s Samuel Handwerger says “is very clever, as it reverts to the old-fashioned method using ‘snail mail.’”

The Smith School has always known how important experiential learning is for students. These hands-on, immersive experiences and opportunities to solve real problems for real companies help them develop critical thinking skills, greater resilience, and an ability to lead the organizations of the future. Smith has offered this type of learning—both in the classroom and beyond—for years.

As more than 20 percent of U.S. adults reportedly own cryptocurrency, revised wording on 2022 tax forms, signals that the IRS perceives “a lot of taxable transactions in cryptocurrency that are not being reported,” says Accounting Lecturer Samuel Handwerger, CPA, for the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

For victims of financial fraud, the path to restitution is time-consuming and costly. But a new initiative from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business is on the case to help bring them justice.

With the proposed student debt relief program mired and stalled in legal battles, it’s now revealed that erroneous notices of student debt forgiveness application approvals were emailed to about 9 million Americans. At this point, says Smith’s Samuel Handwerger, “the Biden administration might be asking themselves ‘Is the road to hell really paved with good intentions?’”

After two years of COVID-caused disruption, tax season this year ends after the traditional, April 15 statutory date – but with more extensions for some people, and they are not COVID-related. 

“All income is taxable unless the tax code says it’s not; all expenses are not deductible from that income unless the tax code says they can be deducted.”

What can a taxpayer do now to prepare for the tax year ahead? Maryland Smith’s Samuel Handwerger recently shared some advice. Handwerger is a CPA and a full-time accounting lecturer at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. He also oversees TerpTax, Maryland Smith’s free tax preparation service, which puts volunteer undergrad students to work helping qualifying community members and UMD graduate students file their taxes.