Tax practice

The Internal Revenue Service has issued new guidance and streamlined procedures for spouses who are seeking equitable relief from joint income tax liability.

The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday that its Office of Professional Responsibility has prevailed in seeking the disbarment of David O. Christensen after he was convicted of theft for misappropriating funds as the conservator of his daughter’s trust account. Christensen’s CPA licenses in Washington and Oregon had been revoked previously as a result of his conviction.

Tax enforcement revenue collected by the Internal Revenue Service has declined for the second straight year, according to a new report publicly released Tuesday by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

The IRS is providing tax relief to individual and business taxpayers impacted by severe storms, flooding, landslides and mudslides in Colorado.

The IRS issued the final Tangible Property Repair Regulations for Sections 162(a) and 263(a) last Friday, modifying and superseding the temporary regulations that were issued on Dec. 23, 2011.

The Internal Revenue Service’s estimate of the so-called “Tax Gap,” the difference between taxes owed and taxes paid voluntarily and on time, needs to be more accurate, reliable, comprehensive and timely, according to a new government report released to the public Monday by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

Thomson Reuters has released the FATCA Essentials library as part of its Checkpoint online research service, providing information on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.

The Internal Revenue Service is providing guidance on the application of the market reform provisions of the Affordable Care Act to health care arrangements such as health reimbursement arrangements, employer payment plans and flexible spending accounts.

The Internal Revenue Service said Friday that approximately 4,000 plan sponsors received erroneous penalty notices.

As tax reform efforts resume in Washington this month, a new survey finds that over 70 percent of business tax professionals believe a detailed tax reform plan will begin to be worked on by the House Ways and Means Committee this year, and nearly 50 percent of the respondents think a tax reform plan will be put forward in the Senate.

A former Internal Revenue Service manager has been sentenced to a year in prison after she was convicted of accessing IRS computers on behalf of a tax business that she operated on the side.

Rahn & Bodmer Co., the Swiss private bank established by silk traders in 1750, said it’s cooperating with a U.S. Department of Justice probe into cross-border accounts of American clients.

Between October 2011 and September 2012, the Internal Revenue Service investigated 13 complaints of IRS personnel who directly contacted taxpayers instead of going through their designated representatives, but IRS managers disciplined or counseled only two of the employees because of their actions.

The Congressional Budget Office is seeing a $400 billion reduction in the federal government’s budget deficit for the current fiscal year, thanks to increased tax revenues due largely to the expiration of the payroll tax cut.

Awareness of the implications of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, also known as FATCA, is growing.

John Koskinen, nominated to become the next Internal Revenue Service commissioner, has a net worth between $7.1 million and $27.4 million, according to a financial disclosure released by the Obama administration.

The Group of 20 world leaders issued a declaration last week calling for a crackdown on cross-border tax evasion.

A new program allowing Swiss banks to cooperate with U.S. tax authorities means that the days of U.S. citizens successfully keeping their numbered Swiss bank accounts hidden from the prying eyes of the IRS could be coming to an end.

The leaders of Congress’s two tax-writing committees have continued their tax reform road show tour with a stop in Memphis, Tenn.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to strengthen its correspondence audit selection process by auditing more of the prior- and subsequent-year tax returns of noncompliant income tax filers, according to a new government report.