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.

  • Congress has begun to focus in on reforms for the nation's health care tax policy - a move that could impact hundreds of billions of dollars a year in cherished tax breaks for individuals and employers.That worm can spilled open on Capitol Hill as the Senate Finance Committee launched hearings into the single largest tax expenditure in the tax code - the $200 billion a year in income and payroll tax incentives paid to encourage employers to offer health insurance coverage to their workers.

    April 2
  • An electrical fire in the basement of the Internal Revenue Service's Washington headquarters led to an evacuation and shutdown of the building yesterday.

    March 30
  • The projection of the composite application--an application that incorporates data from a variety of sources such as a financial software--looked very appealing.

    March 30
  • A congressional panel has scrapped President Bush's proposed budget cuts for hospitals and other Medicare providers, but preserved the president's plan to slash spending levels.

    March 30
  • Public companies and their auditors will have some added leeway to ensure compliance with still unfinalized Public Company Accounting Oversight Board rules restricting the kinds of tax services auditors can provide.

    March 30
  • For the 2005 fiscal year, just 30 out of the country's more than 180,000 millionaires received a face-to-face audit from the Internal Revenue Service, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

    March 29
  • For the past couple of weeks, I've kept running across blog entries referencing a cool graphical representation of how the federal government allocates tax dollars. I finally decided to check out the chart, which has been years in the making.

    March 29
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Tax: Key Questions & Analysis:

What IRS guidance on forms and information reporting should practitioners prioritize?

The IRS continues to update thresholds and instructions for critical tax forms. This includes changes to information reporting requirements and guidance on evolving reporting standards, affecting 1099, W-2 and similar reporting obligations.

What procedural developments affect IRS automatic change consent for method changes?

Tax professionals must understand which accounting method changes qualify for automatic consent versus advance consent. This determines whether a Form 3115 must be filed with IRS National Office or via automatic procedures.

How are tip-related tax provisions evolving under current policy?

New tax provisions related to tip income will impact how service industry clients and payroll units handle tax reporting and compliance. This includes draft schedules and withholding considerations.

What IRS guidance will shape compliance for the 2026 filing season?

Practitioners will need to understand procedural updates, forms changes, and reporting shifts that will affect compliance workflows and client expectations for the 2026 filing season. This includes the implementation timeline for new schedules and reporting requirements as well as for emerging areas such as crypto broker reporting.