Practice management

Highlights of some of our favorite tax-related blogs from the past week.

Swiss banks seeking to avoid U.S. prosecution by disclosing how they helped Americans evade taxes asked the Justice Department this week to back off a dozen demands, including that they cooperate with other nations.

Raoul Weil, who once ran UBS AG’s global wealth-management business, referred to accounts hidden by U.S. clients from the Internal Revenue Service as “toxic waste,” a witness at his tax-conspiracy trial said.

Individuals who lost money in the stock market in 2014 may have other investment assets that have appreciated in value. These taxpayers should consider the extent to which they should sell appreciated assets before year end (if their value has peaked) and thereby offset gains with pre-existing losses.

The Internal Revenue Service is planning to improve the technology used by its Taxpayer Advocate Service to better handle the many requests it receives from taxpayers seeking help with their IRS problems, but the project has been put on hold due to budget cuts.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to go to greater lengths to safeguard taxpayer information on health insurance exchanges, according to a new government report.

The Internal Revenue Service posted the annual cost-of-living adjustments for pension plans and other retirement plans for 2015, allowing taxpayers to contribute up to $18,000 in their 401(k) plans in 2015.

Here’s a scenario that occurs in too many firms. Does it sound familiar to you?

The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission, also known as COSO, is planning a project to review and update its decade-old Enterprise Risk Management–Integrated Framework.

The average tax refund in 2014 was $2,696, up 1.5 percent from the average refund of $2,656 in 2013, according to a new report on how well the Internal Revenue Service operated last tax season.

The number of companies lobbying the U.S. government on tax inversions more than doubled in the quarter ending Sept. 30, as they sought to prevent Congress and the Obama administration from imposing new restrictions.

A bipartisan group of 15 senators has written to the Internal Revenue Service urging the agency to do a better job of preventing tax refund fraud using stolen identities.

The Internal Revenue Service’s Office of Safeguards is not doing enough to protect the federal tax information that it is required to disclose to other government agencies, according to a new report.

A majority of board members at public companies want Congress to pass broad-based tax reform legislation to address corporate tax inversions, according to a new survey.

Last week I told the story of how we were hired to prepare corporate tax returns at a much higher fee than the client said they wanted to pay. This client grew to become our largest client. Here is how it happened.

The American Institute of CPAs has asked the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to reject appeals by EEOC staff to investigate and litigate against accounting firms about their mandatory partner retirement provisions, saying in a letter Monday that the classification of partners as employees would be disruptive to the accounting profession and its business practices.

The Internal Revenue Service will not meet the Treasury Department’s 2015 goal for full compliance with a directive requiring federal agencies to issue identification cards that allow workers to gain access to federally controlled facilities and information systems, according to a new government report that found IRS officials citing the lack of enough funding and staff as the main obstacles.

The Internal Revenue Service did not always issue a notice of its intent to issue a levy on taxpayer assets, according to a new report.

The federal government brought in $3.02 trillion in tax and other revenues in fiscal 2014 – its highest take ever.

Business clients see their accountant as a trusted resource with the knowledge and expertise to help them improve their business and avoid pitfalls.