Tax practice

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.

The Internal Revenue Service’s Taxpayer Advocate Service is temporarily changing the criteria it uses for accepting cases and said it would no longer deal with cases in which the problem involves an IRS delay in processing certain tax documents.

The Internal Revenue Service could improve its exchange of tax compliance information with other countries by collecting better data on the types of information requested and how successfully it was collected.

Fresh on the heels of a redesign of its Web site, the Internal Revenue Service said Friday it is also updating its Transcript Delivery System.

The American Institute of CPAs is asking the Internal Revenue Service to reconsider some of the fees it plans to charge for competency exams and fingerprinting as part of its tax preparer oversight program.

Senators John McCain, R-Ariz., and Kay Hagan, D-N.C., introduced legislation Thursday allowing multinational corporations to repatriate their foreign earnings at a reduced tax rate.

The Internal Revenue Service issued proposed regulations Thursday that would require tax preparers to file a due diligence checklist with any federal tax return claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit, starting next year.

President Barack Obama said Thursday he was “comfortable” with the changes made by Senate Democrats in his jobs bill on Wednesday, including a 5.6 percent surtax on millionaires starting in 2013.

The Internal Revenue is cutting the amount of time it takes to hire new employees by eliminating manual steps and sending automated email reminders to managers.

A new government report recommends that Congress amend the Tax Code to allow the Internal Revenue Service to assess penalties against tax preparers who fail to comply with the electronic filing mandate.

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