Tax practice

A few blocks away from the Accounting Today offices, the Occupy Wall Street movement is encamped at Zuccotti Park in New York.

The American Institute of CPAs has written to the leaders of Congress’s main tax-writing committee urging them to repeal a requirement that would soon force federal, state and local governments to withhold 3 percent on the payments they made to most government contractors, including certain other payments such as Medicare.

The Internal Revenue Service has expanded its compliance program for the Earned Income Tax Credit to cover a broader base of both new and experienced tax preparers in an effort to prevent errors and misrepresentations.

Internal Revenue Service employees with government-paid credit cards made more than 174,000 purchases totaling more than $80 million over a period of a year and a half.

The Internal Revenue Service’s Taxpayer Advocate Service is temporarily changing the criteria it uses for accepting cases and said it would no longer deal with cases in which the problem involves an IRS delay in processing certain tax documents.

The Internal Revenue Service could improve its exchange of tax compliance information with other countries by collecting better data on the types of information requested and how successfully it was collected.

Fresh on the heels of a redesign of its Web site, the Internal Revenue Service said Friday it is also updating its Transcript Delivery System.

The American Institute of CPAs is asking the Internal Revenue Service to reconsider some of the fees it plans to charge for competency exams and fingerprinting as part of its tax preparer oversight program.

Senators John McCain, R-Ariz., and Kay Hagan, D-N.C., introduced legislation Thursday allowing multinational corporations to repatriate their foreign earnings at a reduced tax rate.

The Internal Revenue Service issued proposed regulations Thursday that would require tax preparers to file a due diligence checklist with any federal tax return claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit, starting next year.

President Barack Obama said Thursday he was “comfortable” with the changes made by Senate Democrats in his jobs bill on Wednesday, including a 5.6 percent surtax on millionaires starting in 2013.

The Internal Revenue is cutting the amount of time it takes to hire new employees by eliminating manual steps and sending automated email reminders to managers.

A new government report recommends that Congress amend the Tax Code to allow the Internal Revenue Service to assess penalties against tax preparers who fail to comply with the electronic filing mandate.

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A federal grand jury has indicted 55 individuals for participating in a massive income tax fraud scheme based in Southern California that illegally sought over $250 million in tax refunds.

With the exception of Spain, Luxembourg, Ireland, and a few other countries, most nations did not increase their top personal income tax rate this past year despite revenue pressures, according to a new report from KPMG.

Practitioners tend to view tax season with mixed feelings. On the downside, there's getting clients to send you the data you need to construct their return, and determining how much of what they give you is actually germane to the return.

The Internal Revenue Service has posted the instructions for the estate tax form for people who died in 2010, the year that the estate tax was not in effect for many taxpayers.

The Internal Revenue Service has released guidance aimed at clarifying the tax treatment of mobile phones provided by employers to their employees.

As tax year 2011 starts heading toward the exit, the annual expectation arises that year-end tax planning can somehow help lower tax liability before it becomes fixed for the year, as well as helping to identify and maximize certain tax opportunities that may end with the New Year.