Thanks to a new Swedish law, the Tax Agency can now fine parents who fail to give their children names before they are three months old.

Non-compliant parents face a fine of up to $1,200 per violation.

Thomas Norgren of the Agency says, “It’s every child’s right to have a name.” Of course, parents who are slow to name their children can also cause a paperwork delay on the Agency’s side of things, so the fines might not be entirely for the childrens’ sake.

Norgren also said the agency is currently focusing on the parents of 400 nameless children, but odds are good there are many more offenders in the country.

We’ve previously reported on what one Nevada brothel is doing to drum up business in the suffering economy. It looks like surrounding ranches aren’t taking the promotion lying down — they’re devising their own ways to bring in more clients.

Just in time for the last batch of people getting their IRS stimulus checks, the Moonlight Bunny Ranch in Carson City is offering up a different “2-for-1″ deal than it usually does.

This new deal will double the first 100 customers’ stimulus checks.

Of course, there’s a limit — Moonlight is capping the maximum check amount at $600, meaning the lucky customers can top out at $1200 worth of services for half the price.

We’ll keep you posted as more deals are announced.

Heinrich Kieber, technician for LGT, a country-owned bank in Liechtenstein, isn’t going to be on many CEOs Christmas card lists this year. That’s because the disgruntled worker illegally downloaded and sold information from the bank’s systems — and IRS, along with tax authorities worldwide, couldn’t be happier.

Three CDs worth of data reveal that hundreds of American tax cheats, including many prominent CEOs, had money stored away in secret accounts at the bank.

For these cheaters, the cat’s out of the bag in a big way — Kieber reportedly sold the info to tax authorities in 12 countries, including the U.S., Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy.

U.S. laws allow whistleblowers to collect up to 30% of taxes recovered with the help of their supplied information, but it hasn’t been made clear exactly why Kieber decided to steal and sell the data.

Since Liechtenstein currently brands him as a thief for violating the country’s bank secrecy laws — not to mention the hundreds of cheats who are coming under fire from IRS — Kieber is in hiding, but will testify to the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations via video-conference.

Your company goes the extra mile to make sure its business expense paperwork is bulletproof. Someone ought to clue in IRS.

For as thorough as IRS can be with most business’ tax records, you’d think it’d have a rock-solid reimbursement policy in place. But according to the latest report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), it looks like IRS and other agencies couldn’t possibly have a worse program.

The review of over a dozen departments between 2005 and 2006 found that 41% of $14 billion in credit card purchases — whether they were legitimate or questionable — didn’t follow proper reimbursement procedure. And if that weren’t bad enough, for purchases that were over $2,500 — all of which are supposed to require several levels of authentication — 48% were improperly received.

We know what you’re thinking: That’s a whole mess of improper reimbursements. But it wasn’t just for employees milking gas receipts or upgrading to four-star hotels. Here’s a list of our favorite purchases that we can’t believe didn’t raise an eye or two a little sooner:

1. Army employees couldn’t properly account for 16 computer servers that totaled over $1.5 million. The servers were supposed to be both photographed and inventoried in the Army’s books, but GAO inspectors only found a picture of one of the servers.
2. Over a six-year period, a Department of Agriculture employee wrote 180 convenience checks to her live-in boyfriend. A whistleblower notified the GAO, and the cardholder was sentenced to 21 months in prison and must pay back $642,000.
3. A U.S. Postal worker charged $1,100 on his p-card to subscribe to pornographic and Internet dating sites. We know everyone deserves to find someone, but someone should’ve caught on sooner — the Internet charges were the only purchases made on the card for over a year.
4. Another Agriculture employee circumvented agency policy to purchase a brand-new Toyota Land Cruiser. He split the $80,000 purchase up by writing three convenience checks. Adding insult to injury: The convenience checks added up to an additional $1,000 in fees.
5. One NASA cardholder purchased two 60GB iPods at the request of his supervisor. The $800 might seem like small change compared to other purchases, but you can’t top the supervisor’s logic: The iPods were purchased to store only “official NASA information.” When GAO officials confiscated the devices, they were chock-full of personal photos, songs, videos — and engraved with the supervisor’s name and NASA logo.
6. A State Department cardholder purchased $360 worth of women’s lingerie at “Seduccion Boutique.” When asked to justify her purchases, the cardholder claimed the “gear” was used for jungle training during a drug enforcement program in Ecuador. Makes sense to us — as long as it was camoflauge print.

What’s the most absurd purchase you’ve ever seen, whether on a company card or T&E reimbursement form? Let us know in the comments section below.

IRS tax examiner John Snyder was arrested on May 29 on charges that he accessed over 200 tax records, most of which belonged to Hollywood stars and pro athletes. (Hey, we’re just as obsessed with Brangelina as he is, but we save it for when we’re not on company time.)

Despite being authorized to examine only business accounts, Snyder took his time browsing through random records of individual taxpayers.

That’s not even the tip of the iceberg, says the office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). Between 1997 and 2007, TIGTA investigated 4,704 causes of UNAX — that’s IRS lingo for “unauthorized access to taxpayer information by IRS employees.”

And it’s not only Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan they’re looking at — far and wide, employees can pull up info on any person and business they like.

TIGTA’s investigations resulted in 444 terminations, 407 suspensions, 215 admonishments and 139 “other forms” of disciplinary actions. Another 883 employees resigned before IRS was able to give them any degree of a slap-on-the-wrist, but 176 employees faced criminal prosecution.

But not every case of UNAX is discovered — IRS relies on an automated detection program and fellow employee whistle-blowers to catch those with spying eyes.

He outright refused to file income tax returns for three years. Snipes also tried to collect $11.4 million in fraudulent income tax refunds, even though he was making millions at the time. He said he was naïve, “miseducated” and sorry about not paying taxes.

So what force could possibly strong-arm the action star?

According to Snipes, he was taken advantage of. But according to Eddie Ray Kahn, of the American Rights Litigators, Snipes was a “disciple” when it came to shirking taxes.

The judge must’ve seen Kahn’s point: He decided Snipes was deliberate in not paying his taxes and that the crimes were very serious. Instead of the standard probation, Snipes is getting jail time, much to the chagrin of his lawyers. The Snipes camp started crying out about the unfair punishment and his being “attacked by jackals” as soon as the tax evasions were discovered.

The judge is hoping to make an example out of Snipes to deter any would-be tax deviants and send a clear signal they’ll join Snipes in jail.

Snipes was sentenced to three years, but he hasn’t started serving it yet. He’s waiting around until he’s notified that he has to surrender to the authorities, which could take months.

The computer glitch affects taxpayers whose income was below the filing threshold, but e-filed to receive their economic stimulus check. To allow people to e-file their returns, IRS let these people enter $1 for their adjusted gross income.

But, instead of factoring in that dollar as gross income, the Service’s system recorded it as a $2 earned income credit for the e-filers.

And in a rare show of generosity, IRS isn’t asking for the money to be repaid.

It cost his company $4,235,670.16 in unpaid payroll taxes.

Everything seemed normal from the outside: Businesses would need workers, and Brian Alexander Brown’s company would locate, hire and train people to serve as temporary employees. Instead of paying employees directly, these businesses would pay Excell a fee for the “leased employees” that’d cover labor and administrative costs.

Sounds simple enough. But the catch — and a major source of profit for Excell — was the company withheld income and FICA taxes for the employees yet never remitted them to IRS.

Chalk it up to confusion about what gets withheld and where the money goes? Not here. U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper said that Brown admitted he was fully aware of his company’s legal obligations to remit taxes, and he knowingly decided to hold onto the funds.

At least he can own up to his theft. But the 36-month prison sentence and $4.2 million in restitution proves IRS doesn’t care whether you know you’ve done something wrong — it’s going to get its money.

Or not. But that’s how Lisa Blechman of Santa Clarita, CA responded when IRS agent Ruth Seidman posted a summons on the front door of her home. The agent was conducting an audit of Mr. Blechman’s business, and as she approached the house, Lisa threatened to come outside with her dogs unless the summons was removed.

Seidman called her bluff and left the summons posted, but as she made her way back to her vehicle, Blechman threw open the front door of the house and released her two dogs to scare the IRS agent.

Ready for the bad news? Well, there isn’t any, except for Blechman — the two aging dogs didn’t come anywhere near Seidman. In fact, the pit bull suffered from severe arthritis and wouldn’t have been able to chase her down if it wanted to.

Flash forward to the trial, and Blechman claims that she had a medical history of anxiety attacks and “other ailments” that contributed to the attempted assault. Even though the agent was “confronted” with two sweet, old pooches instead of vicious, tax-hating Cujos, Blechmen was sentenced to two year’s probation.

We’ll keep you updated on how the dogs are taking the sentence.

That’s right. In an “innovative approach” to making Americans better aware of their tax responsibilities, IRS has joined the digital age and posted several public service announcements on the Web site.

Starring IRS Deputy Commissioner Linda Stiff, the PSAs are only around 30 seconds long each, but IRS figures that’s just enough time to whet some whistles and explain the subtle nuances of filing an income tax return.

Yeah, right.

According to IRS, it’s a great way to reach people who wouldn’t otherwise know how to file a return or apply for the economic stimulus rebate.

A quick note to IRS: The type of person who’d turn to YouTube for a primer on filing federal income tax returns probably won’t get be able to grasp the entire process after a 30-second PSA. After all, people who’ve been working in Finance for decades can’t always get a straight answer out of IRS — what are the odds a tax novice would fare better?

Then again, even IRS has to realize that the videos aren’t going to do much in terms of educating people on taxes — they only provide some general info, and then direct viewers to visit IRS’ exploration-friendly (read: impossible to navigate) Web site for more info.