Practice management

Tim Loo learned early this year that his name and Social Security number had made their way onto a fraudulent tax return, and immediately wondered whether the identity thief might also have his bank-account details or his kids’ Social Security numbers.

Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee are being inundated with suggestions for tax reform, despite the limited prospects for comprehensive reform ahead of next year’s elections.

In February, I wrote an article about the challenge I was about to embark on: tax season along with training for an Ironman competition.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to do better at ensuring that health insurance policy issuers and self-insured plan sponsors pay a fee required under the Affordable Care Act known as the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research fee, according to a new government report.

Ideas for tax reform abound, though the prospects are not as bright as they once were.

Limited liability companies have become the entity of choice for small business owners and are commonly utilized by professionals in asset protection planning.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to make further improvements in how it audits partnership tax returns, including assessing how much additional tax the partners owe after a partnership return is audited, according to a new government report.

The National Football League’s central office will become a taxable entity, ending its tax-exempt status in a move with minimal financial effect and significant symbolic value.

Certain EAs who haven’t timely renewed their enrollment status need to do so as soon as possible:

The American Institute of CPAs is pushing to improve the quality of employee benefit plan audits, in part by discouraging unqualified firms from offering the service, in advance of an upcoming report from the U.S. Department of Labor that is expected to find continuing problems with the quality of one-third of the audits.

Chicago plastics manufacturer Stefan Edlis faced more than $20 million in U.S. capital gains taxes by selling his Andy Warhol painting to billionaire Steven A. Cohen eight years ago.

A New Jersey CPA and lawyer has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for conspiring with a mortgage broker to extort and defraud police officers and other victims by falsely claiming they were the subjects of Internal Revenue Service criminal investigations that he could resolve if they paid up to $20,000.

Marc Rosenberg of Rosenberg Associates talks about ways to encourage growth in accounting firms and attract qualified staff, and the threats and dangers that firms confront if they become too complacent, in an interview with Accounting Today editor-in-chief Dan Hood.

The American Institute of CPAs has issued a set of questions and answers on the services a practitioner can provide in connection with the American Land Title Association’s Best Practices Framework for real estate settlement.

I had a client who had five sons and three daughters that worked in his business. Their ages ranged from 28 to 48. I was helping him with exit planning and suggested that I could possibly structure a transaction where either some or all of his children could buy his business.

A Miami resident has been charged with threatening to destroy the Internal Revenue Service building with either fire or a bomb.

H&R Block said Monday that two-thirds of tax filers among its client base who received health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act via the state or federal insurance marketplaces had to pay back an average of $729 of the Advance Premium Tax Credit, cutting their potential refund by nearly one-third.

An OECD initiative on tax evasion is causing ripples around the world

Some of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

The recent IFAC Global SMP Survey from the International Federation of Accountants showed that attracting new clients is a top concern for accountants in small and medium practices, with 58 percent of respondents rating it as a high or very high challenge.