Tax practice

A roundup of tax news from the previous month

Regulations open availability of longevity annuity contracts

The profession speaks out in favor of cash accounting

Some of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued a notice warning businesses not to get caught in backup withholding if the name and taxpayer identification number submitted on a Form 1099-K doesn’t match the IRS’s other records.

The Internal Revenue Service has released a set of long-delayed draft instructions for the forms that companies need to file to comply with the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act.

The Tax Court has held that the value of an airline ticket received in the redemption of “thank you” award points from a bank must be included in gross income.

While both houses of Congress have addressed the passage of tax extender legislation, it is unlikely that anything will come of their efforts until after the midterm elections. One of the expired provisions that haven’t yet been extended is the R&D, or research, credit. If any provisions do get extended, this is one that will be in whatever package makes it to the President’s desk for his signature.

H&R Block and Liberty Tax have been expanding from traditional tax preparation services into other areas such as bookkeeping as they reach out to service small business clients year-round, giving traditional accountants some extra competition.

Billionaire Warren Buffett was an ally of President Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign and the force behind Obama’s “Buffett Rule,” designed to increase tax bills for the wealthiest Americans.

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

Thomson Reuters has begun offering a new Checkpoint Learning Tax Research Certificate Program for tax professionals.

Two top Republican lawmakers profited from a corporate tax-avoidance maneuver that the U.S. Treasury Department is seeking to curb.

The Internal Revenue Service recovered $576 million in erroneously issued tax refunds last year thanks to outside tips provided by financial institutions and other sources such as tax preparers, more than double the amount from three years ago.

There’s more than one way for a U.S. company to avoid taxes by claiming a foreign address.

New guidance for employees in the Appeals division of the IRS goes into effect in the first week of September.

U.S. taxpayers reported $9.1 trillion in adjusted gross income (less deficit) for tax year 2012, according to the most recent IRS Statistics of Income Bulletin.

The IRS is reminding truckers and other owners of heavy highway vehicles that they may need to file their next federal highway use tax return by Tuesday, September 2.

Some of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told tax preparers and others who are frustrated with long wait times on the service’s phone lines to call their member of Congress.