Tax practice

“The Pale King,” the novel about the Internal Revenue Service that author David Foster Wallace was writing before he committed suicide, hit the bookstores on April 15.

The Internal Revenue Service has been doing a better job of detecting and preventing fraudulent refunds this filing season, but programming bugs and inadequate controls are still allowing erroneous claims to get through for various tax credits.

Three influential senators have written to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman, asking him to re-evaluate the two-year time limit for innocent spouses to request tax relief.

Taxpayers set a record over the weekend, surpassing the 100 million mark for electronically filed tax returns so far this season.

In his best impersonation of a fiscal conservative, President Obama last week called for $1 trillion tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans as part of an effort to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the next dozen years.

The House passed the controversial budget plan introduced last week by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., in a largely party-line vote on Friday.

The White House introduced the ability to generate a “federal taxpayer receipt” on its Web site Friday.

Tax filers who paid an accountant or CPA to prepare their returns registered a high level of satisfaction with their method of preparation, with 75 percent stating that they were “very satisfied” in working with the accountant or CPA, according to a new survey.

The Internal Revenue Service is asking the public for recommendations on items that should be included on its 2011-2012 Guidance Priority List.

Problems with administering the First-Time Homebuyer Credit and similar tax credits indicate the Internal Revenue Service needs to strengthen its controls over all refundable credits, a new government report recommended Friday.

It’s doubtful whether the tax changes proposed by the President in his speech on Wednesday would generate much of a dent in the deficit, even if they were to be accepted by Congress.

President Obama signed legislation Thursday repealing the expanded 1099 reporting requirements in the health care reform law and Small Business Jobs Act.

The Internal Revenue Service issued final regulations Thursday lowering the initial enrollment and renewal of enrollment user fees for enrolled agents and enrolled retirement plan agents, and separating the enrolled retirement plan agent user fees from the enrolled agent user fees.

A House committee has passed two bills that would prohibit people with seriously delinquent tax debts from receiving federal contracts or grants or serving as federal employees.

A bipartisan pair of senators has introduced a bill that would require most employers to file their W-2 forms electronically.

A new initiative at the Internal Revenue Service aimed at cracking down on high-income taxpayers with assets abroad has only managed to audit 13 returns since it was set up a year and a half ago.

The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing Wednesday on how the Tax Code’s burdens on individuals demonstrate the need for comprehensive tax reform.

President Obama outlined his plan for reducing the budget deficit by $4 trillion in the next 12 years during a speech Wednesday in which he said taxes would need to be raised on the wealthy and itemized deductions limited.

The eleventh-hour budget deal struck by the White House with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders to avert a government shutdown over the weekend depends to a large extent upon some accounting sleight of hand to achieve the claim of $38 billion in spending cuts.

A new study from Ernst & Young examines the impact on flow-through businesses of the tax reform proposals, and cautions against lowering corporate tax rates at the expense of S Corporations.