Tax practice

Greatland, a provider of W-2 and 1099 tax information reporting software, has issued a guide to help tax preparers navigate the tax changes enacted into law this past year.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to do a better job of managing the credit cards used by employees in the IRS’s Small Business/Self-Employed Division when they are visiting gas stations to enforce fuel excise tax laws.

The Internal Revenue Service has provided special transitional relief to banks and other payment settlement entities required under a 2008 law to begin withholding 28 percent of payments if they are unable to verify a taxpayer identification number for a retailer.

The Internal Revenue Service increased the number of fraudulent tax refund claims it detected and stopped during the 2011 tax-filing season by 171 percent over the previous year.

A federal judge has ruled against H&R Block to prevent the tax prep giant from moving forward with its $287.5 million acquisition of 2SS Holdings, whose 2nd Story Software unit develops TaxAct software, after the Justice Department objected to the deal.

In an era of constantly changing tax laws where provisions expire annually and congressional tinkering is constant, the worker classification system - whether a worker should be treated as an employee or an independent contractor - has remained relatively unchanged for years. Yet that system has generated so much uncertainty that calls for reform have been continuous over the same period of time.

IRS TO BEGIN FINGERPRINTING SOME TAX RETURN PREPARERS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

As an accountant, I have a unique vantage point to observe how entrepreneurs change their decisions based on tax policy.

President Barack Obama pressed for passage of his jobs bill, promising a boost in the economy in exchange for higher taxes on the wealthy.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to do a better job of protecting its computer systems and taxpayer data as it expands its use of wireless technology, according to a new government report.

The Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters has introduced Interactive Decision Tools for its Checkpoint research service to help tax, accounting and audit professionals solve challenging issues.

State tax revenues increased 10.8 percent in the second quarter of 2011, but revenues for local governments headed in the opposite direction.

IMGCAP(1)]There are close to 2 million tax-exempt organizations operating in the United States.

The free trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea and Panama signed into law by President Obama earlier this month included little-publicized provisions that would increase tax preparer penalties and crack down on prisoner tax fraud.

The Internal Revenue Service’s Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiatives are generally effective at convincing thousands of taxpayers with foreign bank accounts to come forward and disclose them to avoid heavy penalties and criminal prosecution, but some improvements are needed, according to a new government report.

The House voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to repeal the 3 percent withholding rule on payments to contractors.

President Barack Obama pledged to help borrowers cope with student loan debt by capping student loan repayments at 10 percent of a borrower’s discretionary income, starting next year.

An advisory committee cautioned the Internal Revenue Service that implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act could run afoul of foreign laws.

The Internal Revenue Service is doing a better job of attracting and retaining qualified personnel, but it still needs to do a better job of complying with legal requirements.