Tax practice

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.

A Missouri CPA has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison for embezzling more than $400,000 from two trusts he controlled.

Grant Thornton has chosen CCH to provide the firm’s tax professionals with subscription-based tax research content and workflow tools.

Claims from tax whistleblowers can take years to get through the Internal Revenue Service’s review and award determination process, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

Despite all the new tax regulations, registration requirements, and the promise of new tax legislation, there’s one thing that return preparers can eliminate from their worry list: tax strategy patents.

President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress on Thursday evening to present a jobs bill containing an expansion of the payroll tax cut, tax breaks for new hires and salary raises, and other tax reform measures.

The Senate approved a patent reform bill on Thursday containing provisions that eliminate patents on tax strategies.

Amazon.com has reportedly clinched a tentative deal with legislative leaders in California to begin collecting sales taxes in September 2012 in exchange for dropping a voter referendum drive aimed at repealing a recently passed law that would require online retailers to collect sales taxes.

A Bronx tax preparer has been sentenced to 63 months in prison for preparing false tax returns using the identities of dead children, while another preparer in Southern California faces prison time for claiming up to 20 non-existent children as dependents.

A bipartisan trio of senators has introduced legislation that would foster the growth of S corporations owned by Employee Stock Ownership Plans, or S-ESOPs.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is creating problems for not only wealthy taxpayers trying to stash their money in secret Swiss bank accounts, but also for Americans living abroad.