Tax practice

The Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration is urging the IRS to ensure better compliance by tax-exempt organizations that don’t file their tax returns.

IRS REFORMS CONTRACTING

The Bernard Madoff situation is just the most notorious of dozens of Ponzi schemes that have surfaced since the current recession made it more difficult for the operators of those schemes to keep covering payouts and redemptions with money from new investors.

Washington, D.C.-In the wake of several high-profile Ponzi schemes - most notably, the $65 billion fraud perpetrated by the now-jailed Bernard Madoff - the Internal Revenue Service has issued new guidance for victims of these types of schemes and their tax preparers.

The Justice Department has filed a “John Doe” summons with a federal court seeking the credit card records of U.S. merchants hiding money in offshore bank accounts.

President Barack Obama made a bid to promote his administration’s tax policies the day taxes were due to be filed.

Billions of dollars in tax credits are being provided toIndividual Taxpayer Identification Number filers without adequate verificationof eligibility, according to the Treasury Inspector General for TaxAdministration.

The Singing CPA, Steven Zelin, a singer-songwriter and practicing CPA, said he intends to perform for the fifth straight year outside New York City’s main post office after 10 pm on April 15 to entertain procrastinating taxpayers.

Internal Revenue Service agents busted a tax prep office less than two days before the filing deadline.

The head of a yachting company became the second UBSclient in the U.S. to plead guilty to tax fraud charges in the midst of aninvestigation into the Swiss bank's tax shelters.

This year, we not only have to contend with Tax Day on April 15, but also with Tax Freedom Day and Tax Tea Parties this week.

Amended returns are available for taxpayers who forget toclaim extra tax benefits and can bring in extra money later, CCH noted.

The Treasury Department hopes to convince more recipientsof federal benefits such as Social Security payments to sign up for directdeposit, instead of waiting for the check to arrive.

The Internal Revenue Service paid out $16.3 million in false refunds and 2,071 false stimulus payments totaling $1.2 million last year.

Newly released data indicates that last year the InternalRevenue Service audited only about 15 percent of large financial servicescompanies - those with $250 million or more in assets - compared with 64percent of corporations of similar sizes.

Neither the Internal Revenue Service nor the FederalHighway Administration knows how much money in excise taxes for motor fuel goesuncollected every year, according to a new report.

The Internal Revenue Service said that it would make some credit and debit card convenience fees tax-deductible, but only under certain circumstances.

This year, the Internal Revenue Service is offering a new way to file an extension request for free.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has commended the Internal Revenue Service for hiring more than 1,000 veterans last year.

The Internal Revenue Service has made slow progress in implementing federally required security settings on nearly 100,000 desktop and laptop computers, said a newly released report.