Tax season

An interactive, Web-based tool is helping Internal Revenue Service employees to provide customer-specific tax law responses efficiently and accurately, according to a new government report.

CCH Small Firm Services has transferred its Electronic Filing Center reporting system from an Oracle database to Microsoft technology.

Nearly 1,200 Electronic Filing Identification Numbers were reported to the Internal Revenue Service as compromised over a five-year period, allowing an individual to electronically submit a federal income tax return using another individual’s EFIN without that person's knowledge, according to a new report.

One of the added chores of preparing tax returns is dealing with clients who receive notices from the IRS. Typically, the IRS issues several million notices a year, commonly because information on a return doesn’t match information reported to the IRS on a Form 1099.

The Internal Revenue Service has been doing a better job of detecting and preventing fraudulent refunds this filing season, but programming bugs and inadequate controls are still allowing erroneous claims to get through for various tax credits.

Taxpayers set a record over the weekend, surpassing the 100 million mark for electronically filed tax returns so far this season.

The White House introduced the ability to generate a “federal taxpayer receipt” on its Web site Friday.

Tax filers who paid an accountant or CPA to prepare their returns registered a high level of satisfaction with their method of preparation, with 75 percent stating that they were “very satisfied” in working with the accountant or CPA, according to a new survey.

The Internal Revenue Service issued final regulations Thursday lowering the initial enrollment and renewal of enrollment user fees for enrolled agents and enrolled retirement plan agents, and separating the enrolled retirement plan agent user fees from the enrolled agent user fees.

The National Association for the Self-Employed advised small business owners who have put off doing their tax returns not to panic.

The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday it expects to receive 10 million tax extension requests in 2011, approximately the same as last year.

Fewer workers this year plan to use their tax refunds to pay off their bills, and more plan to put the money into savings, according to a new survey.

The Internal Revenue Service has warned that tax refunds may be delayed for paper-based tax returns in the event of a government shutdown.

New York City officials have conducted a citywide crackdown on fraudulent tax preparers, handing out violations to one in three tax preparers visited by inspectors.

The Internal Revenue Service issued its annual list Thursday of the “Dirty Dozen” tax scams it has seen this tax season.

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman described his vision for a next-generation tax compliance system that would allow the IRS to pre-populate a taxpayer’s return with W-2, 1099 and other information reporting forms before a taxpayer files a return.

For busy accountants who are responsible for filing taxes on behalf of the approximately 82 million out of 228 million American adults who opt to use professional services, tax season is an emotionally wrought time.

The Internal Revenue Service reminded taxpayers and preparers Monday that they have only two weeks to go before the April 18 filing deadline.

Approximately half of U.S. taxpayers are uneducated about the risks of identity theft during tax season, according to a new survey, but the majority trust their tax preparers.

The IRS has needed to deal with several challenges this tax filing season, including late tax law changes and an increase in the volume of telephone calls, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office, but to ensure that the IRS can adequately enforce certain tax provisions, Congress should provide the IRS with math error authority to use tax return information from previous years to ensure that taxpayers do not improperly claim credits or deductions in excess of lifetime limits where applicable.