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President Bush’s 2008 budget has tabbed $11.4 billion for the Internal Revenue Service, a direct appropriation increase of 6.3 percent from the agency’s 2007 budget.
February 7 -
Everyone in Washington seems to be in agreement that there needs to be a better way of closing the tax gap, but like the other problems facing the Internal Revenue Service, there’s seems to be little Beltway consensus over how to meaningfully tackle the problem.It wasn’t lost on me that the same week that the IRS released its 2008 budget proposal --complete with a number of legislative proposals, a Congressman and the National Taxpayer Advocate continued to spar over the future of one of the agency’s newer attempts to combat the tax gap -- the outsourcing of simple collection cases to private companies as part of a pilot program.
February 7 -
As part of the White House’s proposed $2.9 trillion budget plan for the 2008 fiscal year, President Bush announced an effort aimed at significantly tightening the tax gap.
February 6 -
The Internal Revenue Service is being inundated with returns from taxpayers that don’t correctly claim the one-time telephone tax refund the federal government is issuing for the 2006 tax year.
February 6 -
Tuition paid for a school focused on treating learning disabilities can be classified as a medical expense, according to a private letter ruling from the Internal Revenue Service.Like other deductible medical expenses, the original ruling (PLR 2005-21003) found that the cost of tuition is deductible only to the extent that medical expenses for the year cumulatively exceed 7.5 percent of a taxpayer's adjusted gross income.
February 5 -
A federal court in Texas has rejected a tax shelter once sold by KPMG, in a significant win that continues to lay the legal foundation for the government’s case against 16 former employees of the accounting firm and two outside advisors.
February 5 -
Thomson Tax & Accounting, part of the Thomson Corp., announced that it has finalized the acquisition of Illinois-based Deloitte Tax LLP Sales & Use Outsourcing business.
February 2 -
It might not have generated quite the media hoopla of say, Groundhog Day, but yesterday marked the launch of the Earned Income Tax Credit Awareness Day.
February 2 -
On the precipice of tax season, the Internal Revenue Service is touting its 89 percent success rate last year when it came to prosecuting fraudulent preparers of tax returns.According to statistics released by the agency, the number of preparer fraud indictments increased to 135 in 2006, from 119 the previous year. Of the charges brought by the IRS, 89 percent resulting in an incarceration rate, a 3 percent increase over 2005. However, the number of fraud investigations initiated last year actually decreased to 197, down almost 20 percent from 2005's 248 investigations.
January 31 -
In an effort to explain by example, or at least by handpicked scenario, the Treasury Department has released more details outlining the possible application of President Bush’s plan for a standard health insurance deduction.
January 31