Tax practice

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have released a document containing proposed guidance for foreign financial institutions as the next step in implementing the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act in an effort to combat offshore tax evasion.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to improve the system it uses to assess the quality of the correspondence audits it conducts with taxpayers as the IRS’s own quality review system failed to detect errors in more than half of the IRS’s penalty determinations, according to a new report.

Weaknesses in the controls over asset management at the Internal Revenue Service leave the IRS’s information technology assets vulnerable to loss, according to a new government report.

A home office is the work reality for many CPA consultants and tax preparers. It beckons with the promise of an easy commute, and the comfort of working in your pajamas. It provides the flexibility of working when you want to. It can also save thousands of dollars that would otherwise be spent on rent. What’s not to love?

The processes used by the Internal Revenue Service to verify taxpayers’ income and withholding status are inadvertently resulting in the issuance of potentially fraudulent tax refunds, according to a new report.

The Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation unit does not always coordinate with the IRS’s civil compliance functions when it becomes aware of an abusive tax preparer or promoter, according to a new report that suggested improved communication would allow the IRS to further explore all potential civil and criminal remedies in such cases.

The amount of money the federal government receives from corporate income taxes has been declining since 2008, mainly because of the recession, according to a new government report.

A former UBS AG banker surrendered to U.S. authorities to face a 2011 indictment that he conspired to help wealthy Americans evade taxes by hiding accounts in a smaller Swiss regional bank.

A Florida psychiatrist who helped her husband build two Caribbean medical schools was found guilty by a federal jury of tax charges related to offshore accounts.

Thomson Reuters has released an updated special report on the tax changes in the Affordable Care Act, which have become more relevant now that the health insurance exchanges have opened for business in many states, despite the technical glitches on the federal site.

Worker classification is an ongoing issue that affects accountants and their clients.

The Internal Revenue Service has to do a better job when scanning taxpayer correspondence to avoid errors and repeated requests for information from taxpayers, according to a new report.

A pair of owners of a tax preparation business that claimed millions of dollars in fraudulent tax refunds on behalf of inmates at various New Jersey prisons have been arrested.

Now that the October 15 extended filing deadline for personal income tax returns has passed, we have only 10 weeks to help our clients plan for the tax returns that will be due April 15.

Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., the influential chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, has written a letter to the acting head of the Internal Revenue Service complaining that the IRS’s decision to delay tax season because of the government shutdown will be a financial burden to people who count on early tax refunds.

Hundreds of employees of Internal Revenue Service contractors owe millions of dollars in federal tax debts, according to a new report.

The total number of state, county, city and transit sales tax rate increases in the U.S. rose to 129 in the third quarter of this year, compared to 69 in third quarter of 2012, according to a new report from Thomson Reuters.

Greatland, a provider of W-2 and 1099 products for business, is offering advice to help businesses and their tax preparers avoid penalties, improve compliance and know the important changes for year-end, particularly in light of the Affordable Care Act.

The Internal Revenue Service announced on Tuesday that it will delay the start of the 2014 tax filing season by as much as two weeks due to delays caused by the recent closure of the federal government.

The Internal Revenue Service estimates that between 21 and 25 percent of Earned Income Tax Credit payments were issued improperly during fiscal year 2012, or approximately $11.6 billion to $13.6 billion, and those estimates may be understated because laws that extended increases in the EITC were not factored into the estimates, according to a new report.