Tax practice

The Treasury Department’s inspector general is pressing the Internal Revenue Service in a new report to improve its procedures for direct debt installment agreements to avoid taxpayer defaults.

For several years, researchers have been sending people into tax preparation offices to test the quality of the work. The results have been scary.

The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday evening that it recently identified and halted an automated attack upon its Electronic Filing PIN application on IRS.gov.

Ernst & Young has released the results of its latest survey with the Tax Council of tax executives and tax practitioners about their predictions for tax reform.

The Obama administration released its fiscal year 2017 budget containing a number of tax increases on high-income taxpayers, oil and foreign income, along with tax breaks for the middle class and small businesses, plus a provision giving the Treasury Department the explicit authority to regulate all paid tax preparers.

Some partners in hedge funds, private-equity firms and other businesses organized as so-called pass-throughs would pay a 3.8 percent income tax under President Barack Obama’s 2017 budget request.

A former Internal Revenue Service revenue agent is facing trial this week for soliciting and receiving a bribe from the owner of a Seattle marijuana dispensary.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued inflation adjustments for several tax breaks involving schoolteacher expenses, transit fringe benefits and Section 179 expensing of certain depreciable assets.

With many of the largest U.S. college endowments at record values, two congressional committees that determine tax policy jointly opened an inquiry about how the wealthiest schools manage and spend those funds.

Congress’s passage of legislation last December making many expired tax breaks permanent adds an extra measure of certainty for tax preparers helping their clients with tax planning this year.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to have better processes in place to administer its federal unemployment tax program, according to a new report.

President Barack Obama defended his proposal to levy a new $10-per-barrel tax on oil, arguing that low gasoline prices afford the U.S. an opportunity to finance dramatic improvements in its transportation systems.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued the maximum vehicle values for 2016 that taxpayers need to determine the value of personal use of employer-provided vehicles.

I have always loved accounting and tax season, but I have worked with many people who did not.

The Internal Revenue Service still hasn’t said what caused some of its systems to shut down last Wednesday, but the agency’s processing functions—including e-filing—were restored by last Thursday evening.

Tax pros and their clients are putting themselves at risk, because e-mail is not secure.

A roundup of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

Accounting, tax, bookkeeping and payroll businesses have been growing sales at a healthy rate this past year, according to the latest numbers from the financial information company Sageworks.

A large number of important tax changes go into effect this year. Many were ushered in by the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act of 2015, although legislation enacted earlier in 2015 and in 2014 also contributed a fair share. Still other changes are the result of various administrative pronouncements by the IRS.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, along with a group of other Senate Democrats, have introduced legislation to make the Saver's Credit into a refundable tax credit to help more working families and middle-class Americans save for retirement.