Practice management

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., has introduced a bill that would help low-income married couples deduct twice as much of the interest charged on their student loan debts.

The Internal Revenue Service is being urged to improve its efficiency in auditing the growing number of large partnerships, in a new government report.

The chairman of the House Small Business Committee, Sam Graves, R-Mo., has introduced legislation to streamline and simplify the loan application process at the Small Business Administration by requiring the agency to permit the use of electronic signatures and electronic records.

If there were ever a politically opportune time for Congress to remove the National Football League’s tax exemption, it would seem to be now.

Bloomberg BNA has given tax practitioners and taxpayers a head start on their 2015 tax year planning, releasing a detailed projection of inflation-adjusted tax items for next year on Wednesday.

Technology offers small businesses the irresistible allure of success through the same tools used by larger companies.

Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., has introduced legislation that would amend the Tax Code to disqualify movie and TV producers from receiving tax credits from the federal government if any of the production is done outside the United States.

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

WalletHub, a personal finance social network, has released an analysis of the rates at which S&P 100 companies are taxed at the state, federal and international levels and found they were on average paying more in taxes last year than in 2012, although some are still paying extremely low rates.

The House passed three pieces of legislation Wednesday aimed at limiting the authority of the Internal Revenue Service in response to scandals involving the extra scrutiny given to political groups applying for tax-exempt status as social welfare organizations.

The tax-avoidance strategies that companies like Google Inc., Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. use to escape more than $100 billion a year of levies in the U.S. and Europe are under threat from a plan drawn up by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The final tangible property regulations issued by the Internal Revenue Service last year included a new provision for small taxpayers to help alleviate the tedious process and extent of documentation now required for compliance.

Sometimes a grandfather knows best, even when the disagreement involves the Internal Revenue Service.

A trio of New York City-area income tax preparers has been sentenced to prison.

The American Institute of CPAs has written a letter to Congress asking lawmakers to address the uncertainty about dozens of expired tax breaks and about-to-expire breaks that could complicate next tax season for practitioners.

The owner of Del Tax Services pleaded guilty to willfully preparing false tax returns for clients.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has released its first set of recommendations for a coordinated international approach to combat tax avoidance by multinational enterprises, under the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project.

Networking is one of the simplest tools you can use to maximize your accounting firm’s business opportunities and increase your connections with potential clients.

An industry group is urging the House to postpone a vote on legislation that would scale back Securities and Exchange Commission requirements for companies to file their financial statements using Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, technology.

Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee are hoping their fellow members of Congress will work on passing tax extenders legislation to renew expired tax provisions for individual and business taxpayers, but the legislation probably will not be passed until after the midterm elections this fall.