QUOTE OF THE DAY “I would not exclude that we run the risk of seeing a social revolution.” Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg prime minister, on the effects of austerity measures in Europe Article, 1DIRS: Tax glitch to slow some refunds
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A tax-preparation glitch affecting about 660,000 tax returns will delay refunds by as long as six weeks, with customers of the nation’s largest tax preparer among those affected.
The Internal Revenue Service said in a statement Thursday that a problem with a “limited number of software company products” affected some taxpayers filing a form used to claim educational credits between Feb. 14 and Feb. 22.
The agency didn’t name any companies in the statement but Kansas City-based H&R Block has been informing customers about problems. H&R Block declined to say how many of its customers were affected by the problems with Form 8863.
The problem involves the American opportunity credit, which is worth up to $2,500 annually for the first four years of college. The lifetime learning credit, which provides $2,000 for students who aren’t eligible for the American opportunity credit, isn’t affected, said H&R Block spokesman Gene King.
Form 8863 changed this year, requiring taxpayers to answer additional questions, and the IRS didn’t begin accepting it until Feb. 14. King said the changes along with updates the IRS made to its e-filing technology system affected how some tax preparation software interfaced with the IRS.
The IRS said refunds for the affected returns - about 10 percent of the 6.6 million filed seeking the credit - require additional review.
Redbox opens its movie streaming to all
Redbox Instant, the movie-streaming venture by Coinstar Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., began commercial service Thursday, vying with Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. for online viewers.
The service concluded its testing and began offering sales, rentals and subscription streaming of movies, Chief Executive Officer Shawn Strickland said. It had been in testing with a limited number of customers.
The service, which combines streaming with discs available from kiosks, is focused on movies and aims to draw customers from competitors that don’t offer physical rentals, Strickland said in January. A marketing campaign will start next week and the service will be available through Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox console, Apple Inc. products and Web browsers, he said.
With its offering of downloads for sale, video-ondemand, streaming and physical rentals, the Redbox business will be able to offer titles as they become available to competitors in those markets, and sometimes sooner in the case of DVD rentals, Strickland said. Redbox Instant’s partners have identified a potential audience of as many as 35 million users.
Redbox Instant, at $8 to $9 a month, is counting on price and convenience to attract customers. Users will get unlimited streaming plus four DVDs a month from kiosks.
The service also offers on-demand rentals and digital sales of newer titles.
Big rains cut into Scottish winter wheat
Scotland’s winter-wheat area may be the smallest in at least a decade after wet weather prevented planting last year, the government said Thursday.
Winter wheat was sown on 207,740 acres as of Dec. 1, down 15 percent from a year earlier and the smallest area since at least 2002, the Scottish government said today in an online report.
The United Kingdom had its second-wettest year on record in 2012, according to the Met Office, the national weather forecaster. Eastern Scotland received the most rainfall for the month of December since 1929.
Winter rapeseed was sown on 86,598 acres, 1.7 percent less than a year earlier, the report showed.
Excess rain also cut Scottish production of livestock feed, reducing hay output by 31 percent to a record low of 198,000 tons, according to the report. Scotland’s cattle herd fell 0.5 percent to 1.72 million head, while the number of sheep increased for the first time since 2004, rising 4.4 percent to 4.66 million head.
- Bloomberg NewsNissan reportedly to build Leafs in China
Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s second-largest automaker, plans to build Leaf electric vehicles in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, according to a government statement.
Nissan’s Chinese joint venture with Dongfeng Motor Group Co. may invest $322 million on the project, the National Development and Reform Commission’s Guangdong branch said on its website. According to the statement, the plan calls for initial capacity of 10,000 Leaf units a year and 50,000 after 2015 - comparable to Nissan’s United Kingdom and Japan plants.
Sharon Shen, a Beijing-based spokesman for Nissan, said she couldn’t immediately comment on the statement.
- Bloomberg NewsLockheed to hunt for metals on seabed
Lockheed Martin Corp., the world’s biggest defense contractor, is preparing to scour the Pacific Ocean seabed in a search for metals using data obtained in a Cold War hunt for a sunken Soviet submarine.
Lockheed has set up a unit, U.K. Seabed Resources, to explore for so-called polymetallic nodules that can contain copper, nickel, cobalt, manganese and rare earths, it said in London on Thursday. The company, supported by the United Kingdom government, has been granted the first commercial exploration rights for a 22,000 square mile area of the Pacific between Hawaii and Mexico.
Rare earths comprise 17 elements used in magnets, oil refining and smart-phone batteries. They became a political and legislative flash point in July 2010 when China moved to limit domestic output and cut export quotas by 40 percent, souring ties with the U.S. and Japan.
Seabed Resources was granted the license by the International Seabed Authority under the sponsorship of the British government at a cost of about $500,000, said Moore, chief executive officer of Lockheed’s U.K. unit and Seabed.
Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin surveyed the area targeted for exploration in the 1970s and 1980s after being subcontracted to search for a lost Soviet submarine by billionaire industrialist, aviator and filmmaker Howard Hughes.
- Bloomberg News
Business, Pages 26 on 03/15/2013