Tax practice

New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced a new initiative Monday to encourage individuals who owe significant back taxes to the state to pay their bills by suspending their New York State driver licenses when their past-due tax liability exceeds $10,000.

The House passed a bill to prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from implementing or enforcing the Affordable Care Act before heading home for Congress’s August recess, but the legislation has little chance of advancing in the Senate.

Employers in 17 states (and the Virgin Islands) may not be eligible to claim the maximum amount of state unemployment tax credits on their 2013 federal unemployment tax return, because their state has had an outstanding federal unemployment insurance loan for at least two years, according to tax analysts at Thomson Reuters Checkpoint.

The Internal Revenue Service opened 1,100 criminal investigations of tax fraud by June 30 this year, exceeding the 2012 total with three months remaining in the fiscal year.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa sent a subpoena for Internal Revenue Service documents to the Treasury Secretary, saying he thinks the agency’s chief counsel’s office is “compromised.”

The U.S. tax systems for individuals and corporations should be revamped together, said the top Republican tax writer in Congress, resisting President Barack Obama’s call for a business-only approach.

Tax reform talk is heating up. Support is growing for bipartisan efforts to rewrite the tax code, with committee chairmen and ranking members in both the House and the Senate jumping aboard the effort.

A bipartisan group of senators have introduced legislation to combat acts of tax evasion, money laundering, terrorism and other wrongdoing facilitated by U.S. corporations with hidden owners.

President Barack Obama said he will nominate John Koskinen, former chairman of Freddie Mac, as the next Internal Revenue Service commissioner.

Vulnerabilities at the Internal Revenue Service could allow for improper or fraudulent claims for bond tax credits, according to a new government report.

The IRS has released TD 9625, final regs regarding the exception to the deduction limits on reimbursement or other expense allowance arrangements.

Tax identity theft has grown exponentially over the past several years. Identity theft has topped the Internal Revenue Service's "Dirty Dozen" annual list of tax scams for both 2012 and 2013, and also appeared on the list in 2011. According to the National Taxpayer Advocate Service, identity theft grew by more than 650 percent between fiscal years 2008 and 2012.

A roundup of tax news from the previous month

The Taxpayer Advocate says the problem isn't what you think

Self-described conservative and Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status were asked more questions by the Internal Revenue Service and had longer delays than progressive organizations, according to an analysis by the House Ways and Means Committee.

Liechtensteinische Landesbank AG, a bank based in Vaduz, Liechtenstein, has agreed to pay more than $23.8 million to the United States and entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York under which it produced account files of more than 200 noncompliant U.S. taxpayers.

President Barack Obama, prodding Congress to consider fresh economic proposals after two years of gridlock, called for restructuring business taxes so long as the initial revenue generated goes toward job creation.

Even IRS agents can make simple mistakes in business, such as violating the old adage to “put it in writing.” Even so, the Tax Court in a recent case believed the IRS agent’s testimony regarding an oral contract she had with her mother-in-law.

The leaders of Congress’s two main tax committees continued their tax reform road show tour with a stop at a New Jersey small business that makes kitchen appliances.

Better oversight of IRS revenue officers who are assigned to collect overdue taxes is needed to ensure their actions are completed on a timely basis, according to a new government report.