Tax Strategies

The Internal Revenue Service has been spending tens of thousands of hours auditing nonprofit credit counseling agencies and ordering changes at the vast majority of them, according to newly released data.

The $410 billion spending bill approved Tuesday evening by the Senate to help fund the federal government for the rest of the year includes funding for some nine federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service.

Automated sales tax solutions provider SpeedTax and CPA and business advisory firm Wipfli have partnered in a venture to deliver SpeedTax’s software-as-a-service sales tax applications to Wipfli’s Microsoft Dynamics GP customers.

An Arizona tax preparer has been charged with diverting thousands of dollars’ worth of his clients’ tax refunds to his own bank account.

The Internal Revenue Service has begun offering self-assistance options at some of its offices that give taxpayers limited access to computers and phones so they can reach the IRS’s Web site and toll-free phone lines without waiting in a long line, but those efforts can still be frustrating.

An Ohio CPA urges the National Taxpayer Advocate to lobby elected officials to do their own taxes.

Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen has tapped a CPA, Charles L. Harrison, to lead the state’s “implementation” of the stimulus funding it receives.

Michigan CPA firms Frank & Freedman and Hirsch, Subelsky & Associates have merged to form Frank, Hirsch, Subelsky & Freedman.

There is an additional standard deduction for those who don’t qualify to itemize their tax deductions, but who do pay state or local real estate taxes, according to the Internal Revenue Service. This deduction is available for the 2008 and 2009 tax years.

In the wake of its decision not to renew contracts with two private debt collection agencies, the Internal Revenue Service now appears set to review other types of outside contracts.