Practice Management

The U.S. Senate sent a $42 billion package of tax incentives to President Obama for his signature, reviving dozens of lapsed breaks for 2014 and setting them to expire two weeks from tomorrow.

The Internal Revenue Service received fewer phone calls from taxpayers this year than in recent years, according to a new government report, but the percentage of callers seeking help who received it remained low while wait times remained high compared to prior years.

When I was starting out I read a number of books by master salesman Elmer Wheeler, who said, among many other things, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” This left me with thoughts of always telling clients, or whoever I interacted with, about the value and benefits of dealing with me while de-emphasizing the cost.

Companies planning for a merger or acquisition have various issues to consider as they prepare for the transaction. One of the issues is golden parachutes.

Federal prosecutors in Iowa have agreed to drop a controversial civil asset forfeiture case in which the Internal Revenue Service seized nearly $33,000 from the owner of a Mexican restaurant whose cash deposits at her bank had aroused suspicion of criminal activity.

New York accounting firm O’Connor Davies has launched a new Risk Advisory Group with the help of two veteran accountants formerly with Rothstein Kass, which is now part of KPMG.

U.S. life insurers take billions of dollars in undeserved tax deductions by shifting capital to states with looser reserve requirements and the practice should be halted by the Internal Revenue Service, a New York regulator said.

Some of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

In the waning days of the congressional term, a lawmaker has introduced legislation that would offer a reduced tax rate of 8.75 percent on corporate profits repatriated from abroad and use the money to pay for infrastructure improvements.

The Internal Revenue Service released a revenue procedure Friday providing rules for the nationwide rollout of post-appeals mediation for both Offer in Compromise and Trust Fund Recovery Penalty cases.