Tax practice

The IRS’s ability to detect identity theft-related refund and employment fraud is limited, but by the end of 2008, the IRS had cataloged over 50,000 incidents, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

The IRS is unable to determine if it is issuing erroneous or fraudulent manual refunds to taxpayers, according to a new report.

Democratic lawmakers turned back efforts by House Republicans to depose Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee after revelations of his tax and financial disclosure lapses led to an expanding ethics investigation.

The Internal Revenue Service’s Whistleblower Office is having trouble managing the growing number of claims it has been receiving from informants telling the IRS about tax dodgers.

Taxpayers calling the IRS for help last tax season endured longer hold times and more disconnected phone calls than in the past, according to a new report.

The wheels can sometimes grind slowly at the Treasury Department, and never more so than in getting the program up and running for relieving banks’ balance sheets of mortgage-backed securities and other undesirables.

The Internal Revenue Service correctly calculated the recovery rebate credit on the vast majority of tax returns it processed this year, but it still missed out on tens of millions of dollars.

A retired Boeing sales manager is the latest UBS client to plead guilty to filing a false tax return after the Swiss bank agreed to disclose the identities of some of its U.S. clients.

A husband and wife who owned and operated hair salons in Southern California were sentenced to prison for failing to pay payroll taxes.

Camico is expanding the range of insurance options it is offering to members of the California Society of CPAs.

The Senate Finance Committee wrapped up its grueling work on the health care reform bill late Thursday evening after turning back a tax-related amendment.

The IRS’s paid informant program yielded 476 tips last fiscal year about 1,246 tax evaders after Congress substantially revamped the program in 2006.

The Internal Revenue Service is spending millions in interest on tax refunds that have been improperly frozen, according to a new report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which noted that the IRS's computer system automatically places a freeze on taxpayer refunds greater than $10 million to prevent it from automatically issuing a refund or offsetting another tax liability. The freeze is intended to alert IRS employees that a large-dollar refund, if appropriate, must be issued manually. Frozen refunds that are not manually processed in a timely manner are considered to be "improperly frozen."

The basic structure of taxing estates has not changed since 2001. The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 put into the law the gradual increase in exemption amounts and decrease in marginal rates that we are still working with today. It also put in place the elimination of the estate tax in 2010 and its return in pre-2001 form in 2011 that has made estate planning during this decade so difficult.

Taxpayers will reap little benefit next year from the indexing of many features of the Tax Code, according to CCH, which released estimated income ranges for each 2010 tax bracket.

IRS EASES ON MODIFYING COMMERCIAL MORTGAGE LOANS

New standard ends FIN 48 deferral for private companies

LINDA STIFF RETIRES FROM IRS

IMGCAP(1)]Today, more than three years since it was issued, FIN48 remains the bane of many tax departments’ existence.

The time is nigh, saith the IRS, for millions of taxpayers who have filed for extensions to send in their 2008 returns by Oct. 15.