Tax practice

Calvetti, Ferguson & Wagner, P.C., a CPA and business advisory firm specializing in tax, audit and advisory solutions, sealed a partnership with global transactional concern Verse Consulting that will bolster its international tax offerings to mid-market companies.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress plan to introduce legislation that would allow individuals who make charitable contributions to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti to claim an itemized charitable deduction on their tax return this year instead of waiting until next year.

The Internal Revenue Service took the right steps when it shut down its controversial private debt collection program last year, a government report concluded.

The Internal Revenue Service has released the new form that eligible homebuyers need to claim the First-Time Homebuyer Credit this tax season and said that processing of those tax returns will begin in mid-February.

As Wall Street firms prepare to hand out record levels of bonuses, a group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill have co-sponsored a bill that would slap a 50 percent tax on many of the bonuses.

CCH has published a Special Tax Briefing on the IRS’s new program for registering, educating and testing paid tax preparers.

The White House has reportedly cemented a deal with labor union leaders scaling back the tax on so-called “Cadillac” health insurance plans.

The free electronic filing service has been made available to even more taxpayers.

Although most observers are on board with the new proposals to register, test and license tax return preparers, some questions about the goals and the process remain.

Long-standing problems with S corporation tax compliance should be addressed by Congress and the IRS, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office, which recommended that S corps need to do a better job of reporting shareholder compensation and calculating the ownership shares of corporations.

Jackson Hewitt Tax Service warned in a regulatory filing that it only has enough funding to cover 50 percent of the refund anticipation loans it anticipates making this tax season.

Tax prep chain H&R Block opened a new flagship office in Times Square on Thursday, complete with a giant “smart wall” where clients can be guided through an interactive “tax experience.”

President Barack Obama has proposed levying a fee on large financial firms and banks to pay for the costs of the financial bailout.

The leaders of a group of Wall Street banks admitted to mistakes made by the financial industry while appearing before a commission charged with uncovering the reasons behind the financial meltdown.

Mark Thomas Ellis, president and CEO of Winsted Holdings, pleaded guilty to a tax charge in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

The Internal Revenue Service has added a revised Virtual Small Business Tax Workshop to its Web site with updated content, interactive features and a new reference section.

Intuit has created a Lacerte and ProSeries Tax Certification program that 1040 tax preparers can use to demonstrate their proficiency and firms can use to test their existing staff and find qualified job candidates.

The Internal Revenue Service plans to audit Harvard University and about 39 other colleges as part of an overall review of tax-exempt nonprofit organizations.

The Internal Revenue Service’s ability to detect fraudulent tax refund claims may have been weakened by a recent move to assign the task to a relatively inexperienced group of employees, according to a new report.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to improve its telephone assistance level, as well as its taxpayer service and enforcement functions, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.