Finance

The first round of congressional hearings on the Internal Revenue Service’s scrutiny of small-government groups didn’t reveal the people who started that practice or provide clearer answers on why they did it.

A pair of lawmakers have introduced legislation to end a tax break that favors foreign-controlled insurers over U.S. insurers.

Lois Lerner, the mid-level Internal Revenue Service official at the center of a controversy over the agency’s scrutiny of small-government groups, will invoke her constitutional right not to testify before Congress, according to a letter from her lawyer.

A group of CPAs headed to Capitol Hill yesterday in what has become an annual ritual as they pressed lawmakers to deal with the many issues that accountants and their clients are forced to wrestle with on a daily basis, including taxes and regulations.

Douglas Shulman, the former commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, said he was “dismayed” and “saddened” to learn that IRS employees had singled out small-government groups for tougher scrutiny.

A trio of lawmakers in Congress have introduced a bill in the House that would modify the definition of fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to make clear that appraisers of employee stock ownership plans are not fiduciaries under ERISA.

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook will face off against U.S. senators leveling accusations the iPhone maker has created a web of offshore entities to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. taxes.

Steven Miller, who is being forced out as acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, said the agency has learned from its mistakes while denying that it had targeted nonprofit groups for review because of their political views.

Despite other hearings being held in Washington this week of a more political nature, it’s nice to know that the Ways and Means Committee is continuing to search for ways to make life easier for small businesses, at least as far as complying with the Tax Code. A hearing was held by the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures on Wednesday, May 15, on the Ways and Means Small Business Tax Reform Discussion Draft.

(Bloomberg) President Barack Obama appointed Daniel Werfel, controller of the White House budget office, as acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

President Obama announced during a press conference late Wednesday afternoon that he had asked for and received the resignation of Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller, over the recently revealed news that the agency had been targeting for extra scrutiny the applications of Tea Party and similar groups for tax-exempt status.

The U.S. budget deficit will shrink by the end of fiscal 2013 to $642 billion, the smallest shortfall in five years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

According to a newly released report, a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration audit found that “ineffective management” had led the Internal Revenue Service to use “inappropriate criteria” to identify applications for tax-exempt status for review, leading to Tea Party and similar organizations receiving undue scrutiny and delays in their applications.

Attorney General Eric Holder ordered a criminal investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of small-government advocacy groups for extra scrutiny.

The Marketplace Fairness Act, which the Senate passed last week, would require e-commerce vendors to collect sales taxes not only on physical items, but also on digital goods such as ebooks and music downloads.

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and the chairmen of some key legislative committees have proposed a major overhaul of state laws governing the nonprofit sector in the first major reforms in 40 years, including improved oversight of audits by the charity's board and the hiring of independent auditors.

The acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service said the agency’s errors in targeting small-government groups stemmed from the lack of a “sufficient process” and weren’t the result of partisanship.

President Barack Obama called it “outrageous” for the IRS to target groups promoting limited government for special attention, as a Democratic panel chairman became the latest to announce a congressional probe.

A coalition of charitable organizations is calling on Congress to protect the charitable deduction as leaders of Congress’s tax-writing committees step up their efforts to forge comprehensive tax reform.

At least two congressional committees plan to hold hearings on the Internal Revenue Service’s admission that it targeted for special attention groups promoting limited government.