Tax practice

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

The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday that only three weeks after the opening of tax season, it has already received about one-third of the individual income tax returns it expects to receive in 2014.

Martin Lack became the fourth ex-UBS AG banker to plead guilty to aiding wealthy Americans evade taxes, admitting that for 17 years he helped U.S. clients maintain secret overseas accounts.

For a plan unlikely to become law anytime soon, Representative Dave Camp’s proposal to revamp the tax code is causing a lot of agitation among U.S. companies.

Americans who have been evading taxes through Swiss bank accounts are being advised by tax lawyers to come forward before the Justice Department steps up its own pursuit in response to Senate critics.

(Bloomberg) Ernst & Young LLP was accused by the U.S. of failing to comply with an Internal Revenue Service request for documents in an investigation of the tax liability of the billionaire chairman of industrial-bearing maker Schaeffler AG.

The IRS has unveiled new depreciation deduction limitations for passenger automobiles (including trucks and vans) first placed in service during 2014.

House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., has released his long-awaited draft legislation on tax reform, to mixed reviews.

Credit Suisse Group AG helped American customers hide as much as $10 billion in assets from the Internal Revenue Service, more than double the amount previously known, according to a U.S. Senate committee report.

A whistleblower’s $6.8 million in awards must be taxed as ordinary income, a U.S. Tax Court judge ruled, rejecting arguments that the money should be recognized as capital gains and subject to a lower rate.

Grant Thornton has released a set of tax season tips for both individuals and businesses.

About 52 percent of Americans intend to spend their annual tax refund on necessary expenses such as loans, credit cards and other household expenses, while another 30 percent plan to put the money into savings and only 8 percent plan to invest the tax refund money, according to a new survey.

Taxpayer satisfaction with personal interactions with the Internal Revenue Service remained high despite high-profile controversies in the past year, but there has been some decline in public support for IRS funding, according to an annual survey of taxpayer attitudes.

The American Institute of CPAs has sent a letter outlining a set of legislative proposals to the leaders of Congress’s two main tax committees, the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, recommending ways to simplify the tax laws and make them fairer.

The Internal Revenue Service has significantly increased its enforcement actions against tax criminals and its rate of convicting them, according to a new report from the IRS’s Criminal Investigation unit.

House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., sent a letter Monday to the Internal Revenue Service’s new commissioner, John Koskinen, demanding he turn over documents related to last year’s scandal involving IRS scrutiny of tax-exempt applications or else he would be forced to “compel them.”

Number 10: The lunchroom is finally filled with extra snacks.

Group-of-20 nations agreed to implement a global standard for automatically exchanging information between tax authorities by the end of 2015, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

The number of tax lawsuits filed has declined nearly 10 percent in the past year, and is down more than 30 percent from five years ago, according to a new report.

The IRS should have the authority to regulate tax preparers.