Practice management

Weaknesses in the Internal Revenue Service’s financial and tax-processing systems continue to jeopardize the confidentiality, integrity and availability of sensitive taxpayer information, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

This is the first year that the IRS requires payments made with a credit or debit card to be reported by merchants who processed more than $20,000 and 200 transactions.

A congressional subcommittee plans to hold a hearing next Thursday on the 2012 tax return filing season, with one of the main topics to be the recent reports of tax refund delays.

Accounting firm Skoda Minotti has acquired Core Information Management, a Cleveland-based IT auditing and IT security management firm, and is launching a new industry practice, Skoda Minotti Financial Institutions Services Group, built around the acquisition.

The Senate failed to pass an amendment that would have extended a set of expiring tax credits for wind energy, biofuels, energy efficient homes and other tax breaks.

Nearly two-thirds of tax professionals are unaware of the various tax incentives that are available to private investors in clean energy projects, according to a new poll by Bloomberg BNA.

CCH has expanded its Expert Treatise Library with two new titles on the subject of corporate taxation.

Tax prep chain Jackson Hewitt said that one of its tax preparers is among the first to receive the IRS’s new designation of Registered Tax Return Preparer.

Certain industries in which clients operate increase an accountant’s risk exposure and those with high risk scores are especially precarious.

The Internal Revenue Service has introduced an online search tool that will allow the public to easily check on information about tax-exempt organizations, such as charities and other nonprofits.

A former bank executive has filed suit against the Internal Revenue Service for failing to pay him a whistleblower award.

An amendment to a highway transportation bill that would have extended expired tax credits such as the Research and Experimentation Credit in exchange for freezing the salaries of federal employees for another year has gone down to defeat in the Senate.

Forty percent of senior finance executives at midsize companies say that lack of bargaining power with customers and suppliers is their biggest obstacle in improving cash and working capital management.

The National Taxpayer Advocate is raising concerns about the effectiveness of the Internal Revenue Service’s increasing reliance on correspondence exams instead of face-to-face audits.

Corporate audit giant Ernst & Young operates a lobbying firm in Washington, D.C., that has been hired in recent years by several corporations that were at the same time E&Y audit clients, prompting two senior lawmakers to demand closer regulatory scrutiny.

tax preparers, irs, taxes

A group of U.S. expatriates has written a letter to IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman to complain he has not responded to a directive from the National Taxpayer Advocate objecting to the way taxpayers who came forward under the 2009 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program were treated by IRS examiners.

The Senate has unanimously approved a provision to a highway transportation bill that would revoke the passports of people with seriously delinquent tax debts.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued transition rules for the repair regulations for tangible property.

The Internal Revenue Service has begun providing the initial set of test results and certificates to tax preparers who have registered for the new tax return preparer competency test.