Tax practice

Obamacare is about to collide with the U.S. tax-filing season, adding frustration for millions of taxpayers trying to figure out how to comply and how much they will owe the government.

A Louisiana woman and her son are facing fraud charges for their work as tax preparers.

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

The House voted Wednesday to approve legislation rolling back a variety of financial regulations on business, including a requirement for companies with less than $250 million in annual revenue to file their financials in Extensible Business Reporting Language format with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The latest plan in Congress to cut business tax rates faces a major obstacle: U.S. businesses.

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson released her 2014 Annual Report to Congress, which expresses concern that taxpayers this year are likely to receive the worst levels of taxpayer service since 2001 when the IRS implemented its current performance measures.

The Internal Revenue Service is closing the last of its overseas taxpayer-assistance centers, saying that years of budget cuts have forced it to end a popular program designed to help U.S. citizens living or traveling abroad.

Taxpayers who file their tax returns on paper could face delays of a week or more on their refunds this tax season because of budget cuts, Internal Revenue Service commissioner John Koskinen warned.

The average fee for preparing a tax return, including an itemized Form 1040 with Schedule A and a state tax return, will increase a few dollars to $273 this year, a 4.6 percent increase over the average fee last year, which was $261, according to a survey by the National Society of Accountants.

The Internal Revenue Service has made some changes to its forms this tax season and introduced some new ones as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

The Tax Court has held that a former special agent in the IRS Criminal Investigation division was liable for additional tax and penalties.

A pair of Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate have re-introduced legislation aimed at preventing the abuse of offshore tax havens by multinational companies.

The Internal Revenue Service has introduced an International Data Exchange Service that financial institutions and tax authorities in other countries will use to report tax information under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA.

Congressman Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., is introducing legislation to provide a “Paycheck Bonus Tax Credit” of $1,000 for every worker, which would be paid for with taxes on financial trading.

Six former members of the University of South Dakota football team have pleaded guilty to participating in a tax refund fraud scheme.

Some of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

In his weekly address on Saturday, July 26, 2014, President Obama criticized large corporations that employ tax inversion strategies saying, “They’re keeping most of their business inside the United States, but they’re basically renouncing their citizenship and declaring that they’re based somewhere else, just to avoid paying their fair share.”

The House fell only a few votes short of rolling back a requirement for companies with annual revenue below $250 million from filing their financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the data-tagged Extensible Business Reporting Language format.

Two Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have introduced legislation to regulate paid tax preparers in response to the federal court decision that found the Internal Revenue Service had exceeded its statutory authority in regulating preparers.

The Internal Revenue Service announced that it anticipates opening the 2015 filing season as scheduled in January.