IRS Announces Planned Service Outages Over The Holiday Weekend
Trying to reach IRS over the long weekend? Hoping to use e-Services to file by the extension, match a TIN or other service? You’re out of luck until Tuesday.
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Taxpayers Freaking Out Over 2015 Tax Refund Hoax
Earlier this week, a panicked reader shot me the link to an article with this headline: 2014 Federal Tax Refunds To Be Delayed Until October 15. I glanced at the article on my phone and fired off a quick inquiry to the media department at Internal Revenue Service (IRS) questioning whether it was true. A…
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IRS Says One Million Tax Payments Made In 2014 Through Direct Pay
The Internal Revenue Service has reached the one million mark. In a statement released today, the IRS announced that it has processed over one million tax electronic payments to date through IRS Direct Pay. Those payments have totaled over $1.7 billion. Direct Pay is available to individuals to pay tax bills or estimated tax payments…
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IRS Hit With Class Action Suit Over Tax Preparer User Fees
700,000. That’s the number of potential plaintiffs in a class action suit filed today in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit, Adam Steele, Brittany Montrois et al versus United States of America (complaint opens in Scribd), challenges the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) attempts to regulate tax preparers. The two…
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Credit Cards, The IRS, Form 1099-K And The $19,399 Reporting Hole
Many taxpayers cheered in 2008 when the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, or HERA, was signed into law by President Bush. The bill was designed to provide “needed housing reform” and was intended to kickstart the declining housing market. Of course, Congress never met a bill that couldn’t be bulked up with other bits and…
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IRS Imposes New Limits On Tax Refunds By Direct Deposit
While taxpayers were popping returns into the mail this year, scammers were busy trying to figure out how to cash in. The Internal Revenue Service reported that, by Tax Day, they were investigating 1,800 active cases of identity theft investigations. Many of those cases involved millions of dollars each: just recently, a New York woman…
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Taxpayer Advocate Report Focuses On Taxpayer Bill Of Rights, Refunds, & Tax-Exempt Organizations
It’s that time of year: the National Taxpayer Advocate, Nina Olson, has submitted her mid-year report to the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Committee on Finance. The Taxpayer Advocate is required by statute to submit two reports each year. Those reports are submitted directly to Congress without any prior review or…
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IRS Says Bitcoin Not Reportable On FBAR (For Now)
The IRS has finally issued some guidance on Bitcoin and FBAR. The verdict? Not reportable for now…
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IRS Announces New Tax Preparer Program To Mixed Reactions
There will be a tax preparer certification program after all. That was the word from Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen. If you’re scratching your head after Loving v. Commissioner and wondering how that’s possible, here’s your answer: the program will be voluntary. Following losses at the lower court and the appellate court which held…
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Lois Lerner And The Case Of The Missing Emails
(Author’s note: This post was based on information provided to/from Committee as of June 24. I will post updates as separate posts as the hearings and inquiries progress.) It sounds like a bad premise for a mystery: a crime was (allegedly) committed and the key to the whole thing has incomprehensibly and irretrievably gone missing….