Tax practice

The IRS doesn’t make the laws, it just enforces them.

The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday that tax preparers can start renewing their Preparer Tax Identification Numbers for the 2012 tax-filing season.

The Internal Revenue Service may have paid $3.2 billion in erroneous American Opportunity Tax Credits during the first five months of 2010 to 2.1 million taxpayers, according to a new government report.

The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday that many tax benefits for tax year 2012 will increase due to inflation adjustments, including personal exemptions and standard deductions, with tax brackets also widening next year.

The Internal Revenue Service has increased the maximum pre-tax contribution limit for 401(k) and 403(b) retirement plans, most 457 plans, and the federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan by $500, from $16,500 to $17,000, as a result of cost-of-living adjustments.

A former Bronx tax preparer has been sentenced to three years in prison for preparing false tax returns.

IMGCAP(1)]Twice in the last three years, the IRS has offered taxpayers with undisclosed foreign assets an opportunity to voluntarily disclose the unreported assets, pay back taxes and penalties, and avoid more severe penalties and criminal prosecution.

One day after verbally scuffling with fellow GOP Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, Gov. Rick Perry called for implementing a flax tax in what many saw as a preview of his economic policies.

The Internal Revenue Service is reportedly auditing Google in an effort to learn more about the search giant’s use of foreign subsidiaries to shift profits in the wake of three acquisitions.

The Internal Revenue Service has delayed a new tax return transcript delivery system that was scheduled to debut Monday.

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman issued a dire warning to Congress about the effects of steep budget cuts on the agency’s enforcement ability and services.

Following a scathing report by the Center for Public integrity, which revealed that the Department of Defense lacks any mechanism to shows how the billions in taxpayer dollars are spent, the agency pledged to clean up its accounting practices by 2017.

As with most legislation, the recently derailed American Jobs Act included some good ideas, some bad, and some that were mere political posturing. But now that it has been defeated in the Senate, the focus is on what parts of it might survive in separate future pieces of legislation.

The Internal Revenue Service has sent out an advisory to tax preparers and tax firms that do not have Electronic Filing Identification Numbers to obtain EFINs in order to meet the 2012 e-file mandate.

The Internal Revenue Service mistakenly sent notices to approximately 80,000 taxpayers telling them they needed to repay the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit.

Senate Republicans blocked President Obama’s jobs package with its extension of the payroll tax cuts and unemployment insurance, tax credits for new hires and wage increases, and surtax on millionaires.

A few blocks away from the Accounting Today offices, the Occupy Wall Street movement is encamped at Zuccotti Park in New York.

The American Institute of CPAs has written to the leaders of Congress’s main tax-writing committee urging them to repeal a requirement that would soon force federal, state and local governments to withhold 3 percent on the payments they made to most government contractors, including certain other payments such as Medicare.

The Internal Revenue Service has expanded its compliance program for the Earned Income Tax Credit to cover a broader base of both new and experienced tax preparers in an effort to prevent errors and misrepresentations.

Internal Revenue Service employees with government-paid credit cards made more than 174,000 purchases totaling more than $80 million over a period of a year and a half.