Finance

The Swiss and U.S. governments have signed a memorandum of understanding on interpretations of their agreement on implementing the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA.

The Internal Revenue Service, under a congressional microscope for conference spending and improper scrutiny of small-government groups, has fired fewer workers for misconduct this year than at any time since 2002.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has sent a letter to committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., urging him to stop making unsubstantiated allegations about the IRS Tea Party targeting scandal being traced back to the White House.

The House Ways and Means Committee plans to hold a hearing next Thursday on the use of tax havens by multinational corporations to shift their profits.

The unemployment rate rose a tenth of a percentage point to 7.6 percent in May as employers added 175,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Internal Revenue Service executive who portrayed Spock in the agency’s Star Trek video parody apologized to lawmakers for inappropriate spending on a $4.1 million conference in 2010.

A partisan divide is developing on how U.S. lawmakers view Internal Revenue Service actions, with Republicans seeing intimidation of their allies and Democrats citing agency mistakes and mismanagement.

Acting Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Danny Werfel told lawmakers he is working to restore trust in the beleaguered U.S. tax agency and said he wants to make improvements before pressing for a bigger budget.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has suspended trading in 61 microcap shell companies in an effort to prevent stock fraud, in the second largest trading suspension in the history of the SEC.

The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Darrell Issa, R-Calif., revealed new testimony from IRS employees in Cincinnati who were purportedly involved with the IRS’s screening of Tea Party groups and conservative organizations applying for tax-exempt status.

If the number of congressional hearings on tax reform this year is an indication of the potential for passage, it seems possible that something may actually be in the works.

The Internal Revenue Service does not have enough data to identify who claims a tax expenditure and how much they claim, for nearly half the dollar value of all tax expenditures, or $492 billion out of $1 trillion, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

An advocacy group has filed a lawsuit in a Washington, D.C., federal court on behalf of 25 Tea Party and conservative organizations against the Internal Revenue Service and top IRS officials, in addition to the U.S. Attorney General and Treasury Secretary, and Internal Revenue Service, arguing that the Obama administration overstepped its authority in subjecting applications for tax-exempt status from Tea Party groups to extra scrutiny.

A new report from the Congressional Budget Office found that the top 10 tax expenditures are distributed unevenly across the income scale, with much of the benefit going to the top-earning 1 percent of the population.

Privately held retailers are operating with relatively thin profit margins nearly four years after the end of the recession, and some analysts say costs could go up and pinch margins even more if Congress approves the latest effort to get more retailers to collect taxes on their online sales.

The European Council of Ministers has agreed to take steps to combat the use of corporate tax strategies that shift profits to low-tax countries to avoid paying taxes.

A pair of lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill in the House that would provide relief to nonprofits, such as the Girl Scouts, which now have higher pension funding rules than taxable, for-profit companies.

Lois Lerner, the mid-level Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the controversy over scrutiny of small-government groups seeking tax-exempt status, is being replaced on an acting basis, the IRS said today.

The American Institute of CPAs has expressed its support for the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, which would establish government-wide financial data standards for federal funds.

A pair of senators have introduced a bipartisan bill that would suspend federal employees if they willfully neglect to pay their taxes.