Practice Management

The Internal Revenue Service should strengthen its approach to evaluating a pilot project for matching federal and state taxpayer information before it extends the tax compliance project to 45 states next year, recommended a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said the agency would begin ramping up enforcement against tax abuses such as the avoidance of withholding taxes, especially on dividends.

California accounting firms Burr Pilger Mayer and Andersen & Co. plan to merge on Jan. 1, 2009.\

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has written to congressional leaders criticizing a provision in the automobile industry bailout bill that provides government guarantees to mass transit agencies that have taken advantage of an outlawed tax shelter.

The United States and Liechtenstein have signed an agreement to exchange tax information, including details on the holdings of citizens who are sheltering money in the foreign bank accounts, but only when the U.S. already knows the names of the tax evaders.

Two California residents have been indicted for filing over $2 million in false tax refund claims using the names and Social Security numbers of dead people, with help from a CPA.

iPro One and American Business have teamed up to offer insurance products that wealth management advisors at CPA firms can market to their clients.

A group of Democratic representatives from the House Ways and Means Committee wrote a sternly worded letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warning him against expanding a controversial IRS Notice that allows banks to write off the tax losses of other banks they acquire.

Weaver and Tidwell is merging with Polansky McNutt Perry & Co., expanding Dallas-based Weaver into the San Antonio market.

The fourth of six defendants in a $60 million tax fraud conspiracy case has been sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for his role.