Finance

As 2013 recedes in the rearview mirror, it is understandable that tax professionals look to the road ahead regarding taxes and Washington.

John Koskinen, a 74-year-old multimillionaire with a resume full of accomplishments, is about to get the thankless career-capping job of running the IRS after the Senate Finance Committee approved his nomination Friday.

The House passed the first bipartisan U.S. budget in four years yesterday, clearing the way for final Senate passage next week to ease $63 billion in spending cuts and avert another government shutdown.

President Barack Obama’s nominee to run the Internal Revenue Service said it’s not a high priority to create tax returns that already include information that taxpayers would check, complete and send to the agency.

John Koskinen, President Barack Obama’s nominee to run the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, said at a Senate panel’s confirmation hearing that he would work to restore the public’s trust in the tax agency.

Even though the IRS has made improvements in information security, there are still weak spots in its in system access controls, audit trails, and remediation of security flaws, according to a new report.

The House Small Business Committee held a hearing to determine whether businesses are considered single or multiple entities under the health care reform law, and the compliance ramification for multi-owner business ownership.

The Internal Revenue Service has taken steps to improve its management controls for technology that will help it implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, to improve U.S. tax compliance involving foreign financial assets and offshore accounts, according to a new report, but more work needs to be done.

The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing next Tuesday to consider the nomination of John Koskinen as the next Internal Revenue Service commissioner as the agency seeks to emerge from a series of recent scandals that have prompted the departures of a number of high-ranking officials.

On top of the other problems associated with the troubled rollout of the federal government’s online health insurance exchange, the Internal Revenue Service is now being urged to strengthen the security and anti-fraud protections for the tax credits it will be providing to help taxpayers afford the cost of the insurance premiums.

The U.S. Supreme Court stayed out of the multibillion-dollar fight over Internet sales taxes, leaving intact a New York law that forces Amazon.com Inc. to collect money from customers in that state.

The U.S. Treasury Department has signed intergovernmental agreements with the Cayman Islands and Costa Rica in an effort to combat offshore tax evasion as part of the implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday they are issuing initial guidance regarding qualification requirements for tax-exemption as a social welfare organization under Section 501(c)(4) of the Tax Code after a scandal erupted earlier this year over claims that the IRS was targeting Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status.

Not only are the requirements of the Affordable Care Act difficult and complicated for businesses to understand, but in many cases those aspects that businesses and their advisors think they understand are already slated to change in the future, according to one expert.

House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee chairman Charles Boustany, R-La., has introduced legislation to reform the Internal Revenue Service’s review of applications for tax-exempt status to avoid unfair targeting of some groups.

Preservation of an unlimited charitable deduction garnered wide support from Senate leaders after more than 200 officials from various nonprofits paid a visit to Capitol Hill last week to lobby lawmakers.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is asking the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee to avoid enacting any proposed tax reforms that would limit accounting flexibility for small businesses.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development announced some new steps that the international community is taking toward automatic exchange of tax information between governments worldwide and published ratings of how well countries are complying with demands for greater transparency.

The on-again, off-again nature of the federal tax provisions traditionally known as tax extenders is leading to uncertainty and unnecessary complexity, according to tax policy experts at the American Institute of CPAs.

Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., released a third set of proposals Thursday to overhaul America’s tax code, this one focusing on reforms to tax accounting and cost recovery rules.