Practice Management

Tips and tactics for the new wave of digital tools

A roundup of tax news from the previous month

What companies need to know as the IRS shifts its compliance focus

Seeing signs of movement on changing the Tax Code

The Internal Revenue Service has released proposed regulations that would increase the user fees for both offers in compromise and installment agreements for the first time since 2007.

A California businessman has pleaded guilty to conspiring to conceal bank accounts in Israel, the latest in a series of defendants who have been charged with conspiring with Israeli bankers.

A husband and wife pair of tax preparers have each been sentenced to five years in prison for filing false tax returns.

The Swiss government is urging banks to cooperate with a new program it has set up with U.S. authorities, even though it will require significant financial penalties and information sharing from banks that aided secret account holders.

The Tax Code giveth and the Tax Code taketh away. The depreciation and expensing provisions in the Tax Code allow taxpayers to recover the cost of property through an annual allowance. As a result, many businesses have taken advantage of the opportunity to write off expenses of equipment and other tangible property by making purchases toward the end of the year, driven as much by the tax advantage it gives them as by the actual need for new equipment. But many of these business owners forget that when they sell an asset, the IRS can take their depreciation allowance back, often at the highest possible tax rate. Taxpayers use depreciation to write down the cost of assets, both tangible assets like capital equipment and real property, and intangible assets such as patent costs and goodwill. But if those assets are sold at a profit, the IRS can recapture the full amount that was depreciated.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have ruled that same-sex couples, legally married in jurisdictions that recognize their marriages, will be treated as married for federal tax purposes.