Practice Management

A federal judge has filed paperwork alerting the Internal Revenue Service that he plans to halt their experiment in outsourcing debt collection, siding with a Texas company that claimed they had been unfairly excluded from the bidding process.

IRS TO PAY FOR INFORMATION DISCLOSURES: A judge has ordered the Internal Revenue Service to pay more than $250,000 after determining that an IRS agent disclosed confidential information during a criminal investigation.

The Energy Tax Incentives Act of 2005, passed as part of the 2005 Energy Act and signed by President Bush on Aug. 8, 2005, includes a series of new credits aimed at encouraging the purchase of various types of new alternative fuel vehicles.

With Congress preparing to reconvene in early September, Senate Majority Leader William H. Frist said a vote to fully repeal the estate tax will be tops on the to-do list.

Super-regional CPA and business advisory firm J.H. Cohn LLP has expanded its construction services group unit via a merger with Red Bank, N.J.-based Callahan & Co., a three-partner, 16-person firm specializing in the construction niche.

The Internal Revenue Service will offer special relief to taxpayers in the disaster areas struck by Hurricane Katrina.

The 12th meeting of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform will be held on Sept. 15 in Washington.

Eyeing the niche school audit market, two small accounting firms in Georgia and Ohio recently announced their merger.

Completing a two-year project to shutter abusive transactions of 412(i) plans and other arrangements, the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service have issued final regulations clarifying that any life insurance contract transferred from an employer or a tax-qualified plan to an employee must be taxed at full fair market value.

Minnesota's Department of Revenue will give residents who have used abusive tax shelters until Jan. 31 to amend their tax returns without facing new penalties passed during the 2005 special legislative session.