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IRS OVERHAULS LIEN SYSTEM

Taxpayers with undisclosed income from offshore accounts are under mounting pressure to come forward to the Internal Revenue Service.

THOMSON REUTERS LINKS TAX SOFTWARE WITH ORACLE 12

The accounting profession relies heavily on the latest software applications to run their practices and everyday tasks, but the increasingly mobile accounting workforce has also created a greater need for devices that allow CPAs to work outside the office as efficiently and securely as they do at their own firms.

Payroll software has gone through three major evolutions in the past 20 years, and is about to enter a fourth.

EIDE BAILLY BECOMES AN INTACCT VAR

The Internal Revenue Service is preparing for the possibility that the federal government may shut down just as tax season draws to a close if Democratic and Republican lawmakers can’t reach an agreement on a continuing budget resolution.

Any move on tax reform should take into consideration what the European Union and various countries are doing with their tax systems, observed David Lifson, past president of the New York State Society of CPAs and a tax partner at Crowe Horwath.

The IRS has needed to deal with several challenges this tax filing season, including late tax law changes and an increase in the volume of telephone calls, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office, but to ensure that the IRS can adequately enforce certain tax provisions, Congress should provide the IRS with math error authority to use tax return information from previous years to ensure that taxpayers do not improperly claim credits or deductions in excess of lifetime limits where applicable.

The Internal Revenue Service has discussed, but not yet documented how it plans to develop its service and enforcement efforts to leverage the new paid preparer requirements to improve taxpayer compliance, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.