Tax practice

Tax returns filed this season by tax professionals are down 1.3 percent so far compared to last year, while self-prepared returns are up 5.9 percent, according to the latest IRS statistics.

The Internal Revenue Service is permitting millions of dollars in potentially improper self-employed retirement plan deductions to be claimed, according to a new government report, which estimates that up to $71.4 million over five years could be saved with better controls.

State tax exam information requests are increasingly becoming more comprehensive and demanding.

A decade ago, few of us had heard of identity theft. Now, most of us know someone who has been a victim. And of course, a large portion of ID theft affects tax preparers and taxpayers directly, since tax refunds are a huge target of identity thieves.

With the April 15 tax day quickly approaching, a leading online tax preparer school is offering its own kind of relief in the form of student scholarships.

The Internal Revenue Service is providing guidance for 2014 that will allow taxpayers who are the victims of domestic violence to satisfy a joint filing requirement with a married-filing-separate return in order to obtain the Affordable Care Act's premium tax credit.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., and two other prominent Senate Democrats introduced legislation Wednesday to update the Tax Code to help workers and families keep more of what they earn, but also double the penalty on tax preparers who do not follow the Internal Revenue Service’s due diligence requirements for claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to do better at enabling its frontline employees to identify potentially dangerous tax practitioners, according to a new government report that found at least 84 taxpayer representatives who represented a threat to IRS employees and at least two instances of physical assault.

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

The U.S. Supreme Court decided in favor of the Obama administration in a dispute over taxes on severance compensation, overturning a lower court decision that could have forced the IRS to refund more than $1 billion.

The Tax Court, adding and subtracting “badges” of fraud, has found a California business owner and his companies not liable for a 75 percent civil fraud penalty.

The Internal Revenue Service issued a notice Tuesday saying that Bitcoin and other virtual currencies should be treated as property for federal tax purposes and the general rules for property transactions should apply.

Three Caribbean-based men who helped Americans hide assets from U.S. tax authorities were charged in a sting operation with laundering what they were told was dirty money.

Caterpillar Inc. began defending its international tax maneuvers as a U.S. Senate investigative panel set an April 1 hearing to examine the company’s “offshore tax strategy.”

The Internal Revenue Service is providing taxpayers in Colorado an extension until Oct. 15, 2014 to decide when to claim disaster losses arising from last September’s flooding.

The Internal Revenue Service initially will make limited use of information supplied by other governments about U.S. citizens’ offshore holdings because of budget constraints, Commissioner John Koskinen said.

Foreign banks and other financial institutions are facing a number of deadlines this year for complying with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, which is forcing many of them to wake up belatedly to the complex demands thrust upon them by the new reporting regime.

A U.S. Senate investigative panel is examining Caterpillar Inc. and whether the company improperly avoided U.S. taxes by moving profits outside the country, said three people familiar with the inquiry.

The Internal Revenue Service has released its 2013 IRS Data Book, providing a snapshot of activities at the agency in relation to taxpayers for the fiscal year.

The Internal Revenue Service’s Office of Professional Responsibility has entered into a settlement agreement with a group of appraisers from the same firm who were accused of aiding in the understatement of federal tax liabilities by overvaluing facade easements for charitable donation purposes.