Tax practice

A roundup of tax-related news

More and more companies are coming under scrutiny from tax authorities

Will implementation of the Affordable Care Act be a permanent burden on the Internal Revenue Service, an organization already strapped for cash? And how will it affect preparers and taxpayers?

Approximately 8,400 federal employees and contractors who were judged eligible for a security clearance from April 2006 to December 2011 owed approximately $85 million in unpaid federal taxes as of June 2012, according to a new government report.

It’s the time of year to again start thinking about expiring tax provisions. Usually the first thing that comes to mind is the alternative minimum tax, but this particular issue was “fixed” in January of this year by the fiscal cliff bill. That still leaves a number of expiring provisions, according to Robert Kerr, senior director of government relations at the National Association of Enrolled Agents.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have loosened the “use it or lose it” rule for flexible spending arrangements for health care, allowing participants in health benefit plan to carry over up to $500 from their FSA from year to year.

The IRS is warning consumers about a "sophisticated" phone scam targeting taxpayers, including recent immigrants, nationwide.

The Internal Revenue Service released the annual cost-of-living adjustments Thursday affecting dollar limitations for pension plans and other retirement-related items for tax year 2014, allowing taxpayers to contribute up to $17,500 to their 401(k) plans in 2014.

The Internal Revenue Service issued its annual inflation adjustments for more than 40 tax provisions, including the tax rate schedules, and other tax changes for 2014.

With the government shutdown having recently tested the preparedness of the Internal Revenue Service to deal with sudden downtime, a new report finds the agency needs to make improvements to ensure that timely resumption of critical business processes occurs after an emergency.

A pair of lawmakers have introduced legislation to simplify the Tax Code to enable families to more easily afford the cost of higher education.

The IRS has begun accepting applications and renewals of the Preparer Tax Identification Numbers required of professional tax preparers.

A measure that would put the brakes on the Department of Labor's proposal to establish a fiduciary standard for advisors to retirement plans was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in a largely party-line vote on Tuesday.

Caesars Entertainment Corp. was cited by the Internal Revenue Service for Bank Secrecy Act violations, according to a letter from U.S. investigators notifying the company of a money-laundering probe.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have released a document containing proposed guidance for foreign financial institutions as the next step in implementing the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act in an effort to combat offshore tax evasion.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to improve the system it uses to assess the quality of the correspondence audits it conducts with taxpayers as the IRS’s own quality review system failed to detect errors in more than half of the IRS’s penalty determinations, according to a new report.

Weaknesses in the controls over asset management at the Internal Revenue Service leave the IRS’s information technology assets vulnerable to loss, according to a new government report.

A home office is the work reality for many CPA consultants and tax preparers. It beckons with the promise of an easy commute, and the comfort of working in your pajamas. It provides the flexibility of working when you want to. It can also save thousands of dollars that would otherwise be spent on rent. What’s not to love?

The processes used by the Internal Revenue Service to verify taxpayers’ income and withholding status are inadvertently resulting in the issuance of potentially fraudulent tax refunds, according to a new report.

The Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation unit does not always coordinate with the IRS’s civil compliance functions when it becomes aware of an abusive tax preparer or promoter, according to a new report that suggested improved communication would allow the IRS to further explore all potential civil and criminal remedies in such cases.