Finance

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.

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.