Practice management

The shifting state of the IRS's voluntary disclosure program

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a public policy group that advocates for free markets and limited government, said Thursday its attorneys have petitioned the Supreme Court to review an appeals court ruling last week that upheld an Internal Revenue Service regulation allowing premium tax credits for health insurance purchased on a federal exchange.

A number of groups testified or submitted statements recently at a hearing of the House Committee on Small Business Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access titled “Cash Accounting: a Simpler Method for Small Firms?”

Internal Revenue Service commissioner John Koskinen is putting his hopes in the IRS’s recently introduced Form 1023-EZ, which is intended to expedite applications by small charities for tax-exempt status facing a long backlog.

SocialCPAs, a group that aims to help accounting professionals with social media, has re-launched its annual survey on social media use.

A bill requiring government agencies to disclose how much companies would be able to claim in tax credits and other benefits when they reach settlements with enforcement agencies has passed a key committee.

A group of Democratic lawmakers has introduced legislation designed to prohibit federal contracts to multinational companies that use corporate inversions to cut their tax rates.

The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is hoping to lift the veil on the use of anonymous companies for financial transactions by forcing financial firms to disclose and verify the identities of the actual people, or “beneficial owners,” behind the transactions.

Getting a foreign address isn’t the only way American companies are skirting corporate income taxes.

The Big Four accounting firms are reportedly rebuilding their legal service practices, after abandoning much of that area over a decade ago in response to Sarbanes-Oxley restrictions.

Lois Lerner, the former director of the Internal Revenue Service’s Exempt Organizations unit, referred to “crazies” and “---holes” in an email exchange uncovered by Republican lawmakers on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that 40 tax preparers across the state have been suspended by the state tax department under new regulations requiring them to file their own taxes.

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

A pair of Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that would provide tax relief to student loan borrowers who have been granted debt relief after consistently repaying their student loan debt for at least 20 years, giving them an exemption from being taxed on the amount forgiven on the loans.

Corporate America is at a tipping point. According to an IDC report, the digital universe is doubling in size every two years and will reach 44 trillion gigabytes by 2020. Simultaneously, according to the Information Economics Assessment Kit published by CGOC (Compliance, Governance and Oversight Council), while the value of aging data decreases rapidly over time, the cost to manage it remains constant, creating an ever-increasing expense.

Tobacco makers were able to avoid paying billions of dollars in federal excise taxes by reclassifying their “roll-your-own” tobacco products as pipe tobacco, and small cigars as large cigars, according to a new government report and witnesses at a Senate hearing Tuesday.

Reeling from a series of budget cuts in recent years, the Internal Revenue Service has slashed the customer service functions at its walk-in offices, but did not evaluate the potential impact of reducing or eliminating key services at 386 Taxpayer Assistance Centers prior to implementing changes at those locations, according to a new government report.

The Internal Revenue Service is being pressed to provide more awareness of tax breaks for victims and survivors of terrorist attacks such as 9/11, including first responders.

The IRS Return Preparer Office plans to mail letters this week to approximately 5,000 preparers who are doing returns without valid PTINs.

The scheduled depletion date for Social Security’s Disability Insurance Trust Fund is only two years away, in late 2016, according to a new government report.