Tax practice

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has written a letter to several U.S. newspapers about his concerns over recent efforts by the U.S. government to force banks into disclosing the financial information of dual U.S. and Canadian citizens and other Canadians.

Credit Suisse has reached an agreement with German prosecutors to pay 150 million euros, or approximately $204 million, to resolve a tax dispute stemming from secret accounts at the Swiss bank belonging to German citizens.

Taxpayers who tried to appeal a tax lien or levy for unpaid taxes to the Internal Revenue Service’s Office of Appeals did not always receive the right kind of hearing or their requests were sometimes misclassified, according to a new report.

President Barack Obama is expected to propose a new tax rate for millionaires as part of his long-term deficit reduction plan on Monday.

President Obama signed the patent reform bill into law on Friday with provisions outlawing patents on tax strategies.

Taxpayers still trying to cope with the fallout from the recession are expected to get some tax relief next year from mandatory annual adjustments in tax brackets, according to CCH.

The Internal Revenue Service said the competency exam for Registered Tax Return Preparers will be available starting in October.

Will $447 billion in new taxes help to create jobs, or kill them?

The Internal Revenue Service has gotten 12,000 new applications under its 2011 voluntary disclosure program of offshore bank accounts, pushing the total number of disclosures to 30,000 since 2009, when the IRS began offering a way for U.S. taxpayers to voluntarily disclose their foreign bank accounts.

A New York tax preparer has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison for filing false tax returns containing fictitious and inflated tax deductions and credits.

The Internal Revenue Service may soon need to go on the TV series “Hoarders” if it doesn’t let go of its old furniture.

The Internal Revenue Service has released guidance aimed at clarifying the tax treatment of mobile phones provided by employers to their employees.

H&R Block has made the decision not to offer refund anticipation loans next year, a result of the RAL business getting a lot harder for tax prep chains to operate in lately.

The National Association of Tax Professionals is asking the Internal Revenue Service to clarify a murky provision in the updated Circular 230 rules that seemingly prohibits registered tax preparers from providing “tax advice” to clients unless they're preparing a tax return.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service are asking for input from the public on a proposed safe harbor under the health care reform law that would make it easier for employers to determine whether the health insurance coverage they are offering to employees is considered “affordable.”

The Internal Revenue Service granted tax filing and penalty relief Tuesday to large estates of people who died in 2010, saying their heirs will have until early 2012 to file the necessary tax returns and pay any estate taxes owed.

The Internal Revenue Service has posted the instructions for the estate tax form for people who died in 2010, the year the estate tax was not in effect for many taxpayers.

President Obama released his jobs bill, known as the American Jobs Act, to Congress on Monday, with tax credits for new hires and an expansion of the payroll tax cut.

The Internal Revenue Service has released a memorandum to its examiners instructing them on what types of information they are now allowed to get from small business taxpayers’ accounting software data.

Taxpayers who have been affected by the wildfires blanketing parts of Texas may qualify for federal tax relief, as President Obama has declared Bastrop County and parts of the Texas hill country to be a federal disaster area.