Tax practice

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration is warning taxpayers to beware of phone calls from individuals who claim to represent the Internal Revenue Service, but in reality are trying to defraud them, in what it is saying is the largest ever scam it has seen to date.

The Internal Revenue Service is providing transition relief to owners of individual retirement accounts and individual retirement annuities relating to the application of a one-rollover-per-year limitation of the Tax Code.

A Bronx-based tax preparer who was awaiting sentencing for filing false tax returns was re-arrested on Wednesday on the same charge, and also happens to be the first tax preparer suspended from preparing tax returns under New York State’s new tax preparer regulations.

The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday it has already received more than half of the tax returns it expects to receive during 2014, even though the filing deadline is nearly a month away.

Dozens of tax breaks that lapsed Dec. 31 would be revived in a plan to be presented soon by the new chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

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

The Internal Revenue Service is giving the Mega Millions jackpot some serious competition, with tax refunds totaling $760 million ready to be handed over to an estimated 918,600 taxpayers who did not file a federal income tax return for 2010.

A majority of public companies may be able to avoid the need to file their financial reports using Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, technology if a congressional bill gets signed into law.

An Internal Revenue Service employee took home a computer thumb drive containing unencrypted data on 20,000 fellow workers, the agency said in a statement.

CCH is warning participants in the NCAA college hoops March Madness brackets that any of their winnings in the office pool will be subject to taxes.

New York State has been going after tax evaders under an aggressive new tax collection program, suspending the driver’s licenses of 8,900 New Yorkers who failed to pay their state taxes and collecting over $56 million, 34 percent more than had been projected.

A federal court may allow the convicted former chief of a telecommunications company to deduct more than $44 million from his taxes after he was forced to forfeit the amount of stock gains he realized from insider trading.

Consumer finance site WalletHub has released a report on the states with the highest and lowest taxes.

The American Institute of CPAs has released a list of 10 suggestions for individual taxpayers and their preparers filing tax returns this season.

The Tax Court has ruled against an accountant who tried to deduct a portion of his gambling losses from his taxes.

Most U.S.-based multinational corporations paid lower U.S. taxes on their domestic profits than they paid to foreign governments on their foreign profits, according to a recent study.

The House Financial Services Committee has overwhelmingly approved bipartisan legislation that would remove a requirement for smaller public companies with less than $250 million in annual revenue from filing their financial statements in Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, format for five years.

This season is turning dangerous for tax preparers, according to published reports.

Some of our favorite recent tax frauds.

CCH has released a new tax briefing analyzing the more than 160 tax proposals contained in President Obama’s $3.9 trillion budget plan.