Practice Management

The majority of small businesses want a long-term solution to the debt ceiling so the U.S. can pay its bills and the issue does not repeatedly come up for votes in Congress, according to a new survey.

The Internal Revenue Service is asking for input on the acceptable standards it should put in place for electronic signatures.

The Internal Revenue Service provided advice to taxpayers Wednesday on dealing with the late opening of tax season on January 30 that could also prove helpful to tax preparers.

Unfortunately, recent events make fundamental tax reform, already a heavy lift, much less likely.

While Section 179D of the Tax Code expires at the end of 2013, opportunities exist in two areas: accelerating future projects into 2013 and reviewing projects dating back to Jan. 1, 2006 that resulted in energy savings.

The American Institute of CPAs has written to the leaders of Congress’s tax-writing committees asking them to expand the replacement period for property loss for taxpayers affected by Hurricane Sandy.

The Internal Revenue Service reported that audits of individuals topped 1 million in fiscal year 2012 for the sixth year in a row, a coverage rate of 1.03 percent of all tax returns filed, while audits in the upper income ranges remained substantially higher than other categories.

The Internal Revenue Service reacted Tuesday to the surprise ruling Friday by a federal judge striking down the IRS’s authority to regulate tax preparers, shutting down its Preparer Tax Identification Number registration system and its testing system for tax preparers.

Reactions among tax preparers to Friday’s court decision striking down the legality of the IRS RTRP mandate ranged from relief to recognition that the tax prep industry needs standards. But a survey of various tax prep-related groups on LinkedIn shows that the decision mostly raised questions.

In a stunning blow to the Internal Revenue Service’s efforts to regulate the tax preparation profession, a federal judge struck down the IRS’s licensing requirements for tax preparers on Friday, including testing and continuing education.