Practice management

Large partnerships, including private-equity firms and hedge funds, are often so complex that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service can’t audit them effectively, the Government Accountability Office found.

Congress made some moves this week in working on tax extenders, even though it is not expected to pass any legislation until after the midterm elections.

The Fifth Circuit rejected both the Internal Revenue Service and the Tax Court’s valuation of art contained in an estate, finding an estate’s valuation to be supported by the evidence.

Maintaining healthy client relationships is important for CPAs, particularly when their tax clients need some help with their tax planning that may require outside expertise.

Taxpayers are expected to receive a modest amount of tax relief in 2015, thanks to the annual inflation adjustments provided under the Tax Code.

Last year marked the third consecutive year of increases in CPA firm revenue since the recession, with firms posting a 6.7 percent revenue increase, up from 5.4 percent in the previous year, according to the latest results from the Rosenberg Survey.

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.