Tax practice

U.S. financial institutions may see their reporting burdens rise as a result of a law designed to prevent taxpayers from hiding funds offshore.

The Internal Revenue Service is telling taxpayers to check the qualifications of tax preparers and their history in the aftermath of a stinging defeat in the court.

What has almost 4 million words and is one of the most complex and least transparent documents of the century? Our Tax Code.

Sunday marked the 100th birthday of the U.S. federal income tax with the passage of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution on Feb. 3, 1913.

The Internal Revenue Service is reminding tax preparers to include complete Earned Income Tax Credit checklists with any tax returns they file claiming the tax credit.

The IRS has re-opened its PTIN management and registration site.

In addition to all the usual difficulties of tax season, some preparers are saying that glitches have appeared in their tax prep software as the filing season kicks off.

A federal judge has denied the Internal Revenue Service’s request to suspend his January 18 ruling that struck down the IRS’s tax-preparer scheme as unlawful, but made some important clarifications in a ruling he issued last month.

The Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy has released the fourth edition of its report, “Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States,” which claims that in almost all state tax systems, middle- and low-income families pay a greater share of their income in tax than wealthy families.

The IRS is offering additional tax relief to individuals and businesses affected by Hurricane Sandy.

The Internal Revenue Service plans to begin accepting corporate, partnership and tax-exempt returns starting at 9:00 am Eastern Time on Monday, but with some important exceptions.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that nonfarm payroll employment increased by 157,000 in January, but the unemployment rate ticked up a tenth of a percentage point to 7.9 percent.

The start of 2013 unfortunately brings with it the need to integrate into your clients' tax planning some new threshold amounts that have been added to the Tax Code.

A roundup of news in tax from the previous month

Your clients may want to appeal their assessments

Some taxpayers seeking a quick refund may have to wait longer than usual this year as the Internal Revenue Service tries to stop criminals who steal others’ identities and file fraudulent returns.

The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Oversight Subcommittee is asking the Internal Revenue Service why its Web site continues to provide confusing information about the IRS’s recently invalidated tax preparer regulation requirements.

Without some kind of accepted certification program, the taxpaying public has no way of knowing if a person who says that they are a professional tax preparer has any training or experience. The answer would be some kind of voluntary “certification program” where a tax preparer could receive a universally accepted professional designation based on testing or credentials.

The Internal Revenue Service is promising more video conferencing assistance for taxpayers, social media tools and an improved Web site as it launched tax season Wednesday, along with stepped-up efforts to protect taxpayers from tax refund fraud and identity theft.

A federal court has denied H&R Block’s effort to stop Intuit from continuing to air a pair of TV commercials for TurboTax that comically suggested tax prep franchise employees worked as plumbers and clothing store clerks outside of tax season.