News, practice tips, and industry updates for CPAs, enrolled agents, attorneys, and everyone else working in tax professionally.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), states, and tax industry are taking new steps in their efforts to protect taxpayers from tax-related identity theft. Known as the Security Summit, the collaborative effort between IRS, states, and tax industry began in March 2015. Now they’re asking for one more hand in their efforts – this time, from…
Earlier this year, a federal grand jury handed down a 23 count indictment (downloads as a pdf) against Fesum Ogbazion and Kyle Wade for conspiracy and tax-related crimes. Fesum Ogbazion is the CEO and sole owner of Instant Tax Service (ITS) Financial, and his three companies: ITS Financial, Tax Tree, and TCA Financial. Wade was…
Change isn’t always a good thing. That was the message that Intuit heard loud and clear last year when the company made some changes to TurboTax desktop software. For 2015, the company yanked the interview sections for Schedule C (self-employment income and all expenses), Schedule D (investments), and Schedule E (rental and partnership income) from the…
It just got a little (stress on little) bit cheaper for tax professionals to practice in 2016. As of November 1, 2015, the annual fee for a 2016 preparer tax identification number (PTIN) is $50 for new applications and for renewals. That’s a few dollars cheaper than the prior fee schedule ($64.25 for new registration…
An Appellate Court has overturned a ruling made last year that stopped the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) from challenging the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) new voluntary program to “credential” tax preparers. Initially, U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg (yes, the same Judge Boasberg who wrote the Loving opinion that barred the IRS from…
Today, the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) sent a letter (downloads as a pdf) to the Senate Finance Committee reacting to a proposal which would provide the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) the authority to regulate “all aspects of Federal tax practice, including paid tax return preparers.” In the letter,…
If you were planning to get a little bit of tax work done over the weekend, you might be out of luck. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is conducting its annual Labor Day maintenance this weekend. As a result, there will be an outage for certain IRS systems and services, including e-services (Transcript Delivery System,…
Earlier this week, a federal grand jury sitting in Dayton, Ohio, handed down a 23 count indictment (downloads as a pdf) against Fesum Ogbazion and Kyle Wade for conspiracy and tax-related crimes. Ogbazion and Wade were each charged with one count of impeding the administration of the Internal Revenue Code, one count of conspiracy to…
(This post is part of my Small Business Startup & Survival Guide. You can catch up on the whole series here.) When we opened our own business, my husband and I thought that we were going to call all of the shots. We had a name, a business plan, an office space and had even designed…
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump prides himself on speaking his mind. And what he has on his mind is getting rid of Kansas City-based tax preparation company H&R Block. When asked on “Fox & Friends” about tax policy, Trump offered up a few words, “Put H&R Block out of business.” Trump was referring to efforts…