Practice management

With the clock ticking down to April 15, Ernst & Young is offering taxpayers some last-minute tips if they haven’t yet filed their taxes.

The Internal Revenue Service is expanding a program nationwide to help law enforcement get access to tax return data.

Amazon.com Inc., the world’s biggest online retailer, and discount Internet seller Overstock.com Inc. lost a challenge to New York’s Internet sales tax law as the state’s highest court rejected their arguments that it was unconstitutional.

The top 10 issues that are most likely to prompt an indirect tax audit, when uncovered, according to the Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters:

The Internal Revenue Service has reduced the amount of time it is estimating it will take to process hundreds of thousands of delayed tax returns claiming refunds from education tax credits.

Microsoft Dynamics GP partner The Resource Group will launch a series of webcasts beginning April 10, designed to educate companies about the hidden costs of entry-level accounting systems.

A federal appeals court has refused to lift an injunction by a lower court against the Internal Revenue Service’s tax preparer regulation regime.

The U.S. Supreme Court will use a case involving billionaire Billy Joe “Red” McCombs to decide whether the federal government can impose hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties for the use of abusive tax shelters.

Zoho has released upgrades to its Web and mobile Zoho CRM product which include BCC Dropbox, an automatic BCC feature, and integration of MailMagnet, an email filtering function for mobile devices.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said that a new cooperative effort between the IRS and business taxpayers to conduct real-time audits is receiving positive feedback.

While its figures for the overall season were flat, Intuit reported today that from January 30 through March 16, sales of TurboTax Online units increased 29 percent versus the comparable prior-year period, and that total TurboTax federal units were up 26 percent in the same span.

The Internal Revenue Service has released its annual “Dirty Dozen” list of tax scams, advising taxpayers to be aware of identity theft, phishing scams and several other red flags that can cause financial mayhem.

During the recent Microsoft Convergence 2013 user and partner event we caught up with Jim Bowman, president and chief executive of SBS Group and inquired about their status as a top reseller, Master VAR and the state of the reseller partner profession in general.

The Internal Revenue Service has stepped up its examinations in the past year of taxpayers with high adjusted gross incomes, according to newly released IRS figures.

BlumShapiro has partnered with corporate performance management(CPM) software provider Tagetik to make CPM support services available to their client base across the United States.

The U.S. has asked Liechtenstein to hand over data on foundations that may have been used to hide untaxed American money from the Internal Revenue Service, a step that may threaten Swiss banks.

Back in 1925, a taxpayer won the first case in the Board of Tax Appeals involving the deduction for horse-breeding activity expenses. Deducting expenses related to the “sport of kings” was so attractive that the estate of Cornelius Vanderbilt tried, and lost, two years later. In the intervening 88 years, about 200 taxpayers have litigated the issue, most with unattractive results. The IRS and the courts have essentially told taxpayers to “stop horsing around.”

The Senate narrowly passed a budget for the first time in four years on a mostly party line vote, calling for $975 billion in additional tax revenue over the next 10 years along with state sales tax collections on online sales.

Bowing to pressure from Congress and media outlets, the Internal Revenue Service has released a pair of campy parody videos of Star Trek and Gilligan’s Island, while admitting that the $60,000 spent to produce the videos could have been better spent.

The House Ways and Means Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee held a hearing this week to discuss possible tax reforms on financial products such as derivatives.