Apparently, there's a good reason the regular 1040 is referred to as the "long" form -- it takes the average taxpayer more than a full day to prepare the form with three common schedules, according to an annual study of tax complexity.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to remedy serious weaknesses over taxpayer and Bank Secrecy Act data that leave its systems vulnerable, according to a report released by the Government Accountability Office.

Employees at the Greenwood, Ind., office of the Internal Revenue Service were more than a little surprised a few weeks ago when a disgruntled man pointed a gun at a revenue officer saying, "You can't do this. You can't take my money like this."No one was injured and the man was arrested, but it leads one to wonder about a system that brings out such a violent response from someone who clearly wasn't satisfied with his tax situation.

Washington - A ruling by the Tax Court has underscored the way the alternative minimum tax penalizes holders of incentive stock options when the stock loses value after the option is exercised.

With the April 15 tax filing deadline looming, the Internal Revenue Service says that e-filing, direct deposit and e-payment programs continue to move at record paces so far this year.

-- Tax audits by the Internal Revenue Service on companies in the financial sector are undertaken far less frequently than those in other sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture and mining, according to a report from Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The financial services sector -- which includes banks, insurance companies and brokerage firms -- received less than one-fifth of the audit frequency of other sectors during the years 2002 to 2004. The TRAC study examined the audit rates of companies in a number of sectors, each of which had at least $250 million in assets. "The very low attention being given to the financial sector by the IRS is particularly surprising in light of the leading role this industry plays in the country's economy, including the level of income subject to federal corporate income taxes," the report stated. However, the IRS contended that the TRAC data was flawed due to the fact that an audit of a financial concern would be reported as a manufacturing sector audit if the branch conducting the examination did not have a financial industry specialist on staff.

The Internal Revenue Service announced that as of April 1, some 52 million returns had been filed electronically, 7 percent above last year's e-filing pace. Overall, 65 percent of all returns were e-filed -- up from 60 percent for the same period last year. The service also reported that roughly 4 million returns have been filed via the Free File program -- up 44 percent from the year-ago figures. "As we get deeper into the tax filing season, the percent difference between how many people are using e-file and how many used it last year keeps going up," said IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson. "This shapes up as a really strong year. Taxpayers who haven't filed yet should check into e-file and Free File." The IRS also said that 42 million refunds have been paid through direct deposit, up 5.7 percent for the same time last year.