Tax

ADP is participating in an Internal Revenue Service pilot program to test verification codes on W-2 forms in an effort to reduce tax refund fraud.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Wednesday urged Congress to take action against companies that avoid taxes by shifting their debt to American soil while moving profit overseas, a technique known as earnings stripping, and said that if they don’t, the Treasury Department should crack down with new rules.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc agreed to pay 23.8 million euros ($26 million) to settle allegations from German prosecutors that its Swiss Coutts & Co. Ltd. private bank helped some clients evade tax.

As 2015 comes to a close, businesses are once again facing uncertainty as Congress has yet to act on a host of important provisions that expired at the end of 2014.

The Internal Revenue Service has extended its hold on certain tax refunds for returns filed by nonresident aliens and other foreign taxpayers on Form 1040NR beyond the usual 180-day limit in order to give extra scrutiny to the refund claims, leaving many undocumented immigrant workers waiting up to 360 days to get the tax refunds they filed this year.

CPA.com and Vertex SMB announced the launch of a new cloud-based program providing tools and training for CPAs to create or expand a sales and use tax compliance and advisory practice in their firms.

Some of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

Helping clients make minimum distributions go further

Congress has passed highway-funding legislation that includes two tax provisions that would allow the State Department to revoke the passports of long-term tax delinquents who owe more than $50,000 in tax debts and revive a program requiring the IRS to hire private debt collection agencies.

Our weekly roundup of tax-related investment strategies and news your clients may be thinking about.