Tax practice

A coalition of employers and trade associations from a variety of different industries are asking Congress to clarify the rules for determining eligibility for tax credits for health insurance.

Undercover investigators working for the Government Accountability Office were able to receive approximately $30,000 in Advance Premium Tax Credits for health insurance after setting up a dozen fictitious accounts.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to extend highway and transit funding through Dec. 18, in contrast with Senate Republicans who want a longer extension.

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

Sales tax software provider Avalara has partnered with the publisher Wiley to offer a free ebook, “Sales & Use Tax Compliance for Dummies.”

About 6.6 million U.S. taxpayers paid a penalty imposed for the first time this year for not having health insurance, about 10 percent more than the Obama administration had estimated—though a portion didn’t need to.

A new government report urges the Internal Revenue Service to do a better job of educating and notifying taxpayers about provisions of the tax code requiring them to begin taking minimum distributions from their Individual Retirement Arrangements when they reach a certain age, but the IRS responded that it lacks enough money in its budget to do so.

More than 300,000 taxpayers overpaid the Individual Shared Responsibility Payment for health insurance on their tax returns processed through the end of April, according to a new report from the National Taxpayer Advocate.

The U.S., Japan and Europe are being accused of blocking developing countries from participating in efforts to combat international tax evasion.

Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul sued the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service over rules on how Americans abroad are taxed and what foreign banks must disclose about U.S. customers.

The conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch released new Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service documents last week indicating that the IRS gave the FBI 21 computer disks, containing 1.25 million pages of confidential tax returns from 113,000 nonprofit social welfare groups operating under Section 501(c)(4) of the Tax Code.

Victims of the early May’s severe storms, tornadoes, straight-line winds and flooding in parts of Texas may qualify for tax relief from the IRS.

The United Nations Development Program and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have launched a new global initiative to help developing countries bolster their domestic revenues by strengthening their tax audit capacities.

House Republicans are proposing to tighten tax-compliance rules to keep the U.S. highway fund solvent through mid-December.

KPMG has launched a new quarterly publication to provide chief tax officers, corporate leaders and board members with a view of how their peers are coping with major tax topics and the related challenges and opportunities.

Hillary Clinton on Monday outlined a plan for economic growth focused on the middle class and signaled she'll be offering an extensive set of proposals to rein in Wall Street in one of the first major policy speeches of her presidential campaign.

Two Swiss banks agreed to pay combined penalties of about $8.3 million to avoid prosecution under a U.S. program that requires Swiss firms to say how they helped American clients avoid taxes.

A federal appeals court upheld a sentence that didn’t include prison time for H. Ty Warner, the billionaire creator of Beanie Babies plush toys, who evaded $5.6 million in taxes after hiding money in a Swiss bank account.

Some of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

Our weekly roundup of tax-related investment strategies and news your clients may be thinking about.