Finance

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has released its Semiannual Report to Congress, with a special focus on how the Internal Revenue Service has handled its responsibilities under the Affordable Care Act.

The IRS is freezing hiring, stopping most overtime pay and warning that it won’t answer about half the calls it will receive during the upcoming tax-filing season.

The $1.1 trillion spending bill passed by Congress this week and signed into law by President Obama on Tuesday contains a provision directing the Treasury Department to implement uniform standards for taxpayers claiming refundable credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit to stem improper payments.

Congress’s long-awaited passage of tax extenders legislation provides a short-term extension through only the end of this year of dozens of familiar tax breaks for businesses and individuals, along with a new savings program for the disabled.

Affordable Care Act-related tax issues await CPAs and those who prepare their own returns this upcoming tax season, according to the National Conference of CPA Practitioners.

In the waning days of the congressional term, a lawmaker has introduced legislation that would offer a reduced tax rate of 8.75 percent on corporate profits repatriated from abroad and use the money to pay for infrastructure improvements.

The surge in U.S. companies avoiding taxes by taking a foreign address has been condemned by President Barack Obama and stirred a policy debate in Congress. What’s often overlooked is that these “inversions” are typically a final step in a hopscotch of multinational tax dodging.

The U.S. House of Representatives rejected an $11 billion bill that would have provided tax incentives for charitable donations of food, money from retirement accounts and land-development rights.

Outgoing House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., officially introduced Thursday the comprehensive tax reform package he has been laboring over in recent years.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has released a report highlighting billions of dollars in tax breaks for “special interests.”

The Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee have introduced bipartisan legislation to protect taxpayers against the inappropriate use of civil asset forfeitures by the Internal Revenue Service.

Lawmakers in Congress have included a fourth renewal on the ban on Internet access taxes as part of a spending deal to avert a government shutdown.

Congress has cut the Internal Revenue Service’s budget once again, reducing the tax agency’s fiscal year 2015 budget by 3 percent compared to this year’s funding level.

U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden said he expects Congress to pass legislation that would permanently extend three lapsed tax breaks for charitable contributions.

U.S. states are taking advantage of an expanding economy to cut taxes by the most in 14 years while spending more on education and other programs, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.

The House of Representatives has voted to revive dozens of lapsed U.S. tax breaks only for 2014 and the Senate now looks likely to follow suit within days.

The House of Representatives voted to revive dozens of lapsed U.S. tax breaks for this year and set them to expire again on Dec. 31.

U.S. companies that have already carried out inversions are likely to cost the government a record $2.2 billion or more in lost tax revenue next year, double the amount in 2014, according to calculations based on companies’ financial results.

President Barack Obama held out the prospect that the administration and congressional Republicans can reach a deal on revamping the corporate tax code and said he wanted to start discussions early next year.

U.S. lawmakers, about to pass a short-term deal to extend dozens of targeted tax breaks, know what they’re doing is bad policy. And they’re doing it anyway.