Tax practice

Health care reform tax issues for 2014

A roundup of recent tax-related news.

Educating your clients on the ACA

Foreign financial institutions will face tax withholding penalties on Tuesday, July 1 if they have not begun to make efforts to comply with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA.

The Supreme Court clarified a portion of the ACA applying to closely held businesses, by deciding, in a 5-4 ruling, that the Department of Health and Human Services regulations under the Affordable Care Act, which impose a contraceptive mandate, violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

Sole proprietors and practitioners mainly generate their revenue during tax season from tax preparation clients, but there are other opportunities for them.

The Internal Revenue Service is about to get an unprecedented look at bank accounts and investments U.S. citizens hold abroad, through a law that is making it harder to hide assets from the tax collector.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued final regulations on the tax credit available to certain small employers that offer health insurance coverage to their employees under the Affordable Care Act.

It’s probably one of the most frustrating and time-consuming jobs in tax prep: fixing the mistakes of preparers who mangled a business or individual return before you saw it.

Tax blogger Robert Flach sees many flaws in the IRS's proposed new voluntary program.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued an updated Qualified Intermediary Agreement for foreign banks that have been approved to withhold funds from a client’s bank account to be paid to the IRS.

Former attorney and CPA Paul M. Daugerdas, 63, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for orchestrating a massive scheme in which he and co-conspirators hawked fake tax shelters for wealthy individuals to evade more than $1.6 billion in federal taxes.

Some of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

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

Now that school is out (unless you live in a part of the country still making up for lost “snow days”), it’s easy to get caught up in the general euphoria and take a vacation from thoughts of tax preparation for the summer. But now is precisely the time preparers need to keep communication lines open with their clients, according to Chuck McCabe, president of Peoples Income Tax and The Income Tax School.

The Internal Revenue Service is moving ahead with a voluntary tax preparer education program after legal challenges derailed an earlier mandatory testing and continuing education program.

The Internal Revenue Service has successfully implemented a provision of the Affordable Care Act involving prescription drug fees imposed on pharmaceutical manufacturers and importers, according to a new report.

A new study suggests that tax filing season could be the best time to sign up clients for health coverage under the Affordable Care Act rather than the current open enrollment period.

House Republicans are accusing Lois Lerner, the former director of the Internal Revenue Service’s Exempt Organizations unit, of emailing a colleague about subjecting Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the former chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to an IRS examination.

The House Ways and Means Committee has approved legislation aimed at simplifying the many tax credits available for education.