Tax practice

The Swiss parliament rejected a bill designed to resolve a dispute over undeclared bank accounts held by U.S. citizens, potentially setting the stage for American prosecution of the country’s banks

A new study jointly conducted by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the bill currently under debate in the Senate would save nearly $1 trillion over the next two decades, largely because more than 10 million additional people would be paying taxes.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett has signed into law a measure that will allow more practical, broad-based professional experience to fulfill the requirements for getting a CPA license.

A group of lawmakers from the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee have written a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew urging the Internal Revenue Service to back off of a proposed rule change modifying the retail inventory method of accounting, which retailers fear could cost them millions of dollars a year.

A married pair of New Jersey tax preparers have been charged with tax fraud, with the wife arrested at her home, while the husband remains at large.

Italian fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, founders of the Dolce & Gabbana couture business, were sentenced by an Italian court to a 20-month suspended prison sentence and a steep fine of approximately $670,000 for tax evasion.

The House Financial Services Committee has unanimously passed legislation prohibiting the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board from mandating the automatic rotation of a public company’s independent external auditor.

The IRS Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee's 2013 Annual Report to Congress recommends that the IRS work more closely with tax preparers, accountants and others to pursue its goal of improving compliance electronically.

The Internal Revenue Service’s string of video parodies unfortunately may be nearing an end, now that outraged lawmakers in Congress have put a series of IRS commissioners, acting commissioners, deputy commissioners and ex-commissioners on the hot seat.

The Internal Revenue Service may be nearing an agreement to pay unionized employees $70 million in bonuses that aren’t legally required, said Republican Senator Charles Grassley.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to improve its criminal fraud referral process as well as the timeliness of its evaluation process for referring cases of tax fraud for criminal prosecution, according to a new government report.

Leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee continued their battle over the release of transcripts of interviews with officials from the Internal Revenue Service’s Exempt Organizations division amid claims of what the transcripts indicate about White House involvement in the targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups.

The RTRP program could serve as the base of a new voluntary credential.

World leaders at the G8 Summit meeting in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, issued a declaration Tuesday calling for countries to share tax information and increase transparency to discourage tax evasion, and President Obama released an action plan for identifying actual company ownership.

Congressman Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, has introduced legislation that would direct the Treasury Department to issue a legislative proposal to Congress concerning the viability of replacing the current income tax with a consumption tax.

In honor of Small Business Week, the IRS is offering two webinars for small-business owners.

The Internal Revenue Service plans to develop more guidance and training materials to inform taxpayers and tax preparers of the tax compliance risks associated with using virtual currencies like Bitcoin and “Linden dollars.”

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists created a database of users of international tax havens over the weekend, and the group reported Monday that database received 2 million page views in its first 24 hours of operation.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., have introduced legislation aimed at allowing Enrolled Agents to present themselves as such and tout their credential wherever they practice.

The National Society of Accountants has met with officials at the Internal Revenue Service to try to persuade the IRS not to close down its Disclosure Authorization and Electronic Account Resolution e-Services.