Tax
Tax News & IRS Insights for Accounting Professionals
Accounting Today delivers news and analysis for accounting and tax professionals on federal and state tax developments, IRS guidance,information reporting, and operational implications for practices and clients. Our coverage focuses on legislative and procedural shifts that tax practitioners must monitor in planning, compliance, and advisory contexts.
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In an attempt to head off politicians' talk about taxing the recent high earnings of oil companies, President Bush said last week that the industry should be allowed to reinvest its profits into energy research.
April 30 -
Bjorn Ulvaeus, one quarter of super group Abba, is facing charges from regulators that he failed to pay more than $11.5 million in taxes on song royalties.
April 30 -
The Internal Revenue Service has shifted its enforcement priorities from tax shelters to high-impact tax cheats -- including attorneys and CPAs.
April 30 -
When criticism of the Internal Revenue Service's revision of its more-than-30-year-old preparer disclosure rules first surfaced, it came as an attack from consumer groups outraged that rules were being eased to permit the marketing of taxpayer information.However, contrary to press reports, the IRS said that the proposed rules actually tighten existing requirements regarding the customer consent that a return preparer must obtain to disclose the customer's tax return information to third parties. In fact, explained IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, "For over 30 years, under the law, return preparers have been able to disclose tax return information with the consent of taxpayers."
April 30 -
Code Section 7216 governs the disclosure and use of tax return information by tax return preparers. Late last year, in Notice 2005-93, the Internal Revenue Service issued a proposed revenue procedure purportedly to update the disclosure rules to account for changes in return filing, particularly to account for the growing use of electronic filing and electronic signatures and the foreign outsourcing of tax preparation work.The proposals have set off some apparently unexpected protests from several consumer protection groups, basically concerned that the proposals make it too easy for taxpayers to unknowingly grant permission for disclosure of their tax information.
April 30 -
The Internal Revenue Service has released updated draft instructions for the new Schedule M-3, filed by large and midsized corporations, and which should be rolled out for the 2006 tax year.
April 30 -
KPMG moved a bit closer to putting another piece of its tax shelter troubles in the past, filing court papers that more than 200 investors have agreed to a settlement in a class-action lawsuit against the accounting firm and law firm Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP.
April 27