Tax practice

Instant Tax Service, described by a U.S. judge as the fourth-biggest tax preparation business in the nation, was ordered closed after a court found it engaged in abusive and fraudulent practices.

If you’re an accountant who loses money, and your spouse is a real estate agent who makes money, can you combine your business with your spouse’s in order to calculate self-employment tax?

The Internal Revenue Service’s ability to detect identity theft has improved, but billions of dollars were lost to criminals in 2011, according to a new report.

Senators Robert Menendez, D-N.J. and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., have introduced bipartisan legislation to help entrepreneurs start and grow a small business and comply with complex tax rules.

A new report from the Government Accountability Office examines corporate tax deferral, highlighting the distortionary impact on the economy.

The Internal Revenue Service expanded nationwide on Wednesday the rollout of its streamlined Fast Track Settlement program, which aims to help small businesses under audit settle their differences with the IRS over their tax debts more quickly.

A bipartisan bill has been introduced in the Senate with the goal of simplifying income tax collections for taxpayers who work in multiple states.

A pair of senators have introduced bipartisan legislation that would rescind tax write-offs for illegal corporate behavior in an effort to hold corporate wrongdoers accountable.

Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, has written a letter to Internal Revenue Service acting commissioner Danny Werfel urging the IRS to disclose all the information it has available to date on the eligibility determinations it has made for individuals who have applied for premium tax credits in the health insurance exchanges that went online last month under the Affordable Care Act.

The Internal Revenue Service does not always identify potentially mistaken claims for General Business Credits when processing tax returns, according to a new government report that found unsupported claims for the credits totaling $1.3 billion for 2011.

The American Institute of CPAs has written to the leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee encouraging them to support the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2013, also known as the DATA Act (S. 994), which includes a provision calling for establishment of government-wide financial data standards for federal funds.

A dozen emerging technology companies, including Twitter and Facebook, have enough unused tax breaks for executive stock options to eliminate all income taxes on the next $11.4 billion of U.S. income they collectively earn, according to a new report, giving them a net federal tax cut of $4 billion.

Anonymous visits by government auditors have uncovered accuracy problems with some of the tax returns prepared by volunteers who staff the Internal Revenue Service’s Volunteer Program, according to a new report.

The advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed a rulemaking petition asking the Internal Revenue Service to clarify the regulations for tax-exempt business trade groups organized under Section 501(c)6 of the Tax Code and rein in abuses by them, while also calling on the IRS to investigate one such group, Freedom Partners, which is supported by the conservative Koch brothers who own Koch Industries.

The taxation of damages is a nightmare for taxpayers.

Thomson Reuters has released a new special report on year-end tax planning for 2013 for individuals and businesses.

Taxpayer data is vulnerable to inappropriate use, modification or disclosure, perhaps without being detected, according to a new government report that found problems with the Internal Revenue Service’s technology for configuration management and identity and access management.

The American Institute of CPAs has written a letter to the Internal Revenue Service identifying 17 areas in which the IRS should provide additional guidance to tax practitioners and taxpayers in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision ruling section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., a senior member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, has introduced legislation to expand the New Markets Tax Credit program to provide up to $100 million a year to help distressed communities whose military installations have been either closed or realigned.

On Sept. 13, 2013, two years after the 2011 temporary and proposed regulations, the Internal Revenue Service issued final and reproposed tangible property regs. There are a number of differences between the final and reproposed regulations as compared to the 2011 regs, with a stated goal of simplifying and clarifying them and making them more administrable.