Practice management

The House Ways and Means Committee voted Wednesday to send a criminal referral letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, asking him to determine whether Lois Lerner, the former director of the Internal Revenue Service’s Exempt Organizations unit, violated the law.

The Internal Revenue Service did not pursue up to $53 million in potentially improper claims for the Qualified Retirement Savings Contributions Credit, according to a new government report.

A new Web site provides a state-by-state guide to tax laws and regulations for LGBT couples.

Thomson Reuters has published a special report on the 3.8 percent net investment income tax that was included as part of the Affordable Care Act, which tax preparers will be calculating for the first time on their clients’ 2013 returns.

The top lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee disagreed over whether extending tax breaks for research and international finance operations should be offset to prevent the U.S. budget deficit from growing.

Every accountant who wants to thrive, or at least survive in the ultra-competitive economy of today, must make sure that they take all the necessary steps to achieve maximum efficiency in all areas.

The Internal Revenue Service has continued to make progress in addressing weaknesses in its information security control and improving its internal control over financial reporting, but weaknesses remain that could affect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of financial and sensitive taxpayer data, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

The Senate Finance Committee held a hearing Tuesday on the subject of incompetent and unethical tax preparers and heard testimony on how the Internal Revenue Service should deal with them.

House Republicans are showing no sign that they’ll move forward legislation the Senate passed restoring benefits for the long-term unemployed.

The Marketplace Fairness Act, which was supposed to finally settle the question of how states can tax online sales, appears to have stalled in Congress after passing the Senate last year.

PricewaterhouseCoopers completed its acquisition of Booz & Co. last week, renaming the management consulting firm as Strategy& (pronounced “Strategy and”).

The Internal Revenue Service said that a qualified tax professional who has a Form 8821, Tax Information Authorization, on file may now request a client’s account transcript using the Transcript Delivery System.

New York’s top banking regulator is investigating whether Credit Suisse Group AG’s private banking practices resulted in the evasion of state taxes, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The Internal Revenue Service paid out $53 million in whistleblower awards last year, a steep decline from the $125 million paid to whistleblowers in 2012, according to an annual report by the IRS Whistleblower Office.

Some of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

In my previous article, I discussed mandatory CPE. Today I am writing about non-mandatory courses: those covering practice management.

Taxpayers who make cash contributions on or before April 14, 2014, for Philippines typhoon relief can get an immediate tax benefit by choosing to claim them on their 2013 returns, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

The Internal Revenue Service said Friday that victims of last month’s mudslides and flooding in Washington state will have until Oct. 15 to file their returns and pay any taxes due.

The Internal Revenue Service is not adequately performing the job of managing its mainframe software licenses, according to a report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

Only 33 percent of small businesses employ a bookkeeper, according to a survey by Palo Alto Software, and an additional 50 percent say they also do not plan to hire one this year.