Tax practice

The American Institute of CPAs has sent a set of proposals outlining its recommendations for permanent tax provisions related to disaster relief.

Senate Finance Committee chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, sent a letter Tuesday to Internal Revenue Service commissioner John Koskinen questioning the agency’s expenditures on office furniture, toys and surveys at a time when the IRS chief has been complaining about budget cuts at the hands of Congress.

The nonprofit organization Tax Analysts has created an interactive bar graph of audit rates to provide information on the chances of being audited by the Internal Revenue Service depending on different business types and individual income levels.

MapLight, a nonpartisan research organization that tracks money's influence on politics, has released a new analysis of how major tax and accounting organizations are spending funds on lobbying Congress and federal agencies.

Every year, millions of taxpayers miss out on chances to lower their tax bills. They miss deductions or don’t exploit tax breaks designed to lower the costs of education, retirement, and health care.

Swiss banks, for decades the bastions of secrecy, are preaching the virtue of transparency to their U.S. clients as they try to head off billions of dollars in potential fines for helping Americans evade taxes.

Comedian John Oliver, host of the HBO series, “Last Week Tonight,” defended the Internal Revenue Service on his show Sunday evening, with the assistance of singer Michael Bolton.

The Internal Revenue Service is asking tax professionals to refrain from directing their clients to call the IRS’s e-help desk, saying that it is causing longer hold times on the phone line, which is only supposed to be used by practitioners.

Congressional Republicans have narrowed the estate tax so much that it affects only about 5,500 wealthy American households a year. Now they want to eliminate the tax altogether—with a bonus for heirs.

Consumer demand is not affected as much by sales taxes that are tacked onto purchase prices, as opposed to excise taxes that are included in the purchase price, according to a new study.

With minutes counting down to this year's tax deadline, clients (and many of their accountants) are scrambling to get paperwork wrapped up on time. But many financial and tax professionals caution that in the heat of the moment, even the most knowledgeable can forget the basics – never mind easy-to-miss, specialized strategies.

The IRS is giving clients who got a wrong 1095-A limited relief from tax penalties.

Some of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

Tax professionals share how they handle clients who bother them too much.

President Barack Obama and his wife reported adjusted gross income of $477,383 for 2014, down 0.8 percent from last year, according to their tax returns.

A new report from the U.S. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation shows that looking only at income taxes misses most of what we pay to the federal government each year.

The IRS will begin accepting applications for the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee on Monday, April 13, and continue accepting them through May 22.

As the pace of serious discussions on tax reform picks up, it is evident that small businesses and global multinationals are making their voices heard, while the middle market is getting lost in the shuffle.

Taxpayers are waiting on long lines in front of the Internal Revenue Service’s Taxpayer Assistance Centers for routine services this tax season, as the IRS’s budget crunch even limits the number of printed tax forms the agency can distribute.

Victims of identity theft are continuing to experience long delays and errors in receiving their tax refunds, according to a new report.