Tax practice

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

U.S. corporations have reported to the Internal Revenue Service that 54 percent of their offshore profits are earned in 12 tax haven countries that, combined, only account for 4 percent of economic output among all countries where U.S. corporations do business.

A group of technology companies sent a letter Wednesday to leaders of the House Financial Services Committee objecting to legislation that would exempt companies with under $250 million in annual revenue from existing requirements to file financial statements as machine-readable open data.

Nearly 6 million Americans living abroad are facing a June 16 deadline to file their taxes this year.

The National Conference of CPA Practitioners is questioning a proposal to reinstate a discontinued program that would allow private contractors to collect unpaid tax debts on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service.

Thirteen Swiss banks face rising stakes in their own criminal probes after Credit Suisse Group AG set a new standard for punishment in the U.S. crackdown on offshore tax evasion.

The Internal Revenue Service has ruled that employers are not in compliance with the Affordable Care Act if they simply reimburse employees for buying insurance through one of the exchanges instead of establishing a health insurance plan for employees.

A Rhode Island man has been convicted of threatening to assault and murder an Internal Revenue Service revenue agent and his family.

The Internal Revenue Service said it is now allowing some suspended or disbarred tax practitioners to obtain or renew preparer tax identification numbers and prepare federal tax returns for compensation as a result of recent court decisions in the Loving v. IRS case.

A former Chicago tax preparer was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for filing nearly 3,200 false federal income tax returns that claimed refunds totaling more than $3.37 million for clients.

The IRS Oversight Board has sent a letter to the leaders of Congress’s main tax committees urging them not to re-instate a privatized tax debt collection program.

Bernard Madoff’s fraud might have been detected with enough due diligence in mid-2006, more than two years before the Ponzi scheme collapsed, a U.S. Tax Court judge ruled.

Some of our favorite recent tax fraud cases -- now with more insurance fraud!

The Internal Revenue Service plans to substantially change the regulations it proposed last fall for tax-exempt “social welfare” organizations and their political activities before moving ahead with a public hearing.

Enhanced Section 179 expensing allowances, along with dozens of other “temporary” tax provisions, expired at the end of last year.

A site that connects people to online accounting degree programs has created a new infographic on Taxes Around the World, including some strange taxes such as a tax on cow flatulence in Denmark and a tax break in Canada for makers of breakfast cereal who put toys inside the boxes.

The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday its new Web-based system, IRS Direct Pay, has been used by more than 150,000 taxpayers so far.

The Internal Revenue Service’s Employee Plans Compliance Unit recently looked at whether employee benefit plan sponsors had completed all the necessary steps after filing a Form 5500-series return showing they had adopted a resolution to terminate the plan, and found that many did not.

The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday it will begin a one-year pilot program in June to help small businesses with retirement plans that owe penalties for not filing reporting documents.

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