Practice Management

The Internal Revenue Service's tough stance on settling the "Son of Boss" tax shelters matches the call by the IRS Oversight Board for increased compliance funding, as well as the tax gap findings of the National Research Program. Together, they signal a sea change from the kinder, gentler, post-1998 hearings IRS.

Washington - The Winter 2004-2005 Statistics of Income Bulletin, a quarterly compilation of information on various topics from federal tax returns and other documents, has been released by the Internal Revenue Service.

It's official: Taxpayers who file paper returns are in the minority, the Internal Revenue Service reported.

As of this writing, bankruptcy reform legislation had passed the Senate and was expected to move quickly through the House and be signed by President Bush. The Bankruptcy Abuse and Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 may already be law as you read this column.

In recognition of National Small Business Week, the Internal Revenue Service has made available a number of free online resources to help the nation's 45 million small business and self-employed taxpayers with their tax responsibilities.

Tax and accounting software provider Creative Solutions Inc. has acquired the tax software line of Cincinnati-based Accountware for undisclosed terms.

Marking its second deal this month, top-ranked firm Armanino McKenna has acquired Cupertino, Calif.-based ValueNomics Research Inc., boosting its business valuation and litigation support practice and strengthening its presence in Silicon Valley and San Diego.

SurePrep, known for its outsourcing services, has developed a tax preparation workflow system to help firms maintain greater control over tax preparation decisions while reducing review and correction time. SurePrep Express is a Web-based system that categorizes scanned source documents to ease processing and data entry.

The implementing states of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement voted to create an associate membership, keeping the agreement on track toward its Oct. 1, 2005, interstate effective date.

The Internal Revenue Service is seeking applications to fill seven vacancies on the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee, a 14-member panel that provides a public forum for discussion of electronic tax administration issues in support of the goal of paperlessly filing tax and information returns.