Tax practice

U.S. states are trying to capture corporate income taxes lost to offshore havens, wary of companies exploiting rules that let them channel cash abroad and weary of congressional inaction.

Some of our favorite recent tax fraud cases, including one preparer who is alleged to have sent in a false return for her dead mother.

Internal Revenue Service commissioner John Koskinen addressed a special thank you to the tax community in an email to tax professionals Friday, noting that their work is “critical to running the tax system and helping the nation.”

The Internal Revenue Service has released the 2014 version of “The Truth about Frivolous Tax Arguments,” a document that describes and responds to some of the common frivolous tax arguments made by those who oppose the federal tax laws.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has recently investigated several cases in which Internal Revenue Service employees allegedly engaged in partisan political activity in the workplace, advocating in support of President Obama.

The United States is working with other countries on multinational corporate tax issues, including the increasingly thorny issue of base erosion and profit shifting.

While the tax code definition of useful life for business assets is intended to correspond to their actual life, this isn’t always the case.

The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday it has initiated more than 200 new investigations this filing season into identity theft and tax refund fraud schemes, and the IRS Criminal Investigation unit has started 295 new identity theft investigations since January, pushing the number of active cases to more than 1,800.

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

The House Ways and Means Committee voted Wednesday to send a criminal referral letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, asking him to determine whether Lois Lerner, the former director of the Internal Revenue Service’s Exempt Organizations unit, violated the law.

The Internal Revenue Service did not pursue up to $53 million in potentially improper claims for the Qualified Retirement Savings Contributions Credit, according to a new government report.

A new Web site provides a state-by-state guide to tax laws and regulations for LGBT couples.

Thomson Reuters has published a special report on the 3.8 percent net investment income tax that was included as part of the Affordable Care Act, which tax preparers will be calculating for the first time on their clients’ 2013 returns.

The top lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee disagreed over whether extending tax breaks for research and international finance operations should be offset to prevent the U.S. budget deficit from growing.

The Internal Revenue Service has continued to make progress in addressing weaknesses in its information security control and improving its internal control over financial reporting, but weaknesses remain that could affect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of financial and sensitive taxpayer data, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

The Senate Finance Committee held a hearing Tuesday on the subject of incompetent and unethical tax preparers and heard testimony on how the Internal Revenue Service should deal with them.

House Republicans are showing no sign that they’ll move forward legislation the Senate passed restoring benefits for the long-term unemployed.

The Marketplace Fairness Act, which was supposed to finally settle the question of how states can tax online sales, appears to have stalled in Congress after passing the Senate last year.

The Internal Revenue Service said that a qualified tax professional who has a Form 8821, Tax Information Authorization, on file may now request a client’s account transcript using the Transcript Delivery System.

New York’s top banking regulator is investigating whether Credit Suisse Group AG’s private banking practices resulted in the evasion of state taxes, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.