Practice and client management

The Internal Revenue Service has released the summer 2014 edition of its quarterly Statistics of Income Bulletin, providing data on foreign controlled domestic corporations and municipal bonds from tax year 2011.

You and two of your colleagues are returning from the firm’s annual partner retreat. You thought there were good discussions and everyone agreed on a few decisions that will really move the firm forward. You ask the others in your car what they thought. One speaks up.

Two years after a single vote on the U.S. Supreme Court saved a core part of Obamacare, opponents are trying to topple the measure again, this time using a four-word phrase in the law.

Tax lawyer Robert Wellen’s telephone keeps ringing with calls from hedge-fund executives he’s never met.

Turning dangling proposals into winners

A roundup of tax news from the previous month

Regulations open availability of longevity annuity contracts

The profession speaks out in favor of cash accounting

Some of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued a notice warning businesses not to get caught in backup withholding if the name and taxpayer identification number submitted on a Form 1099-K doesn’t match the IRS’s other records.

One time I was asked to audit a hotel in Florida that was going to be foreclosed on by the mortgagor and for which I was paid in advance. The audit was planned and scheduled, and it looked like we had everything under control from our end as much as we could.

The Internal Revenue Service has released a set of long-delayed draft instructions for the forms that companies need to file to comply with the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act.

The Tax Court has held that the value of an airline ticket received in the redemption of “thank you” award points from a bank must be included in gross income.

While both houses of Congress have addressed the passage of tax extender legislation, it is unlikely that anything will come of their efforts until after the midterm elections. One of the expired provisions that haven’t yet been extended is the R&D, or research, credit. If any provisions do get extended, this is one that will be in whatever package makes it to the President’s desk for his signature.

H&R Block and Liberty Tax have been expanding from traditional tax preparation services into other areas such as bookkeeping as they reach out to service small business clients year-round, giving traditional accountants some extra competition.

AccountantsWorld has redesigned Website Relief, the company’s cloud-based software for helping accounting firms create websites and virtual offices.

Billionaire Warren Buffett was an ally of President Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign and the force behind Obama’s “Buffett Rule,” designed to increase tax bills for the wealthiest Americans.

Nonprofit and for-profit corporations that borrow through the issuance of taxable or tax exempt municipal debt have a new rule about who can give them financial advice.

Highlights of some of our favorite tax-related blogs from the past week.