IRS

Getting a phone call from the IRS can be scary. If the person on the other end of the line tells you that you owe thousands in back income taxes and must pay now, it may seem like you have no choice. Don’t be fooled. The person you are talking to is not an IRS […]

If a tax dispute with the IRS reaches the point that you or the agency must file suit to resolve it, the litigation could end up in one of several different courts. In fact, there are four different federal courts that potentially could have jurisdiction over your tax case. Though the balance of power between […]

The government pursues tax revenues with the relentlessness of a pack of bloodhounds. Even an honest tax mistake can come back to haunt you years later in an audit, and the IRS can follow up on a willful omission or failure for even longer. But for just how long do you have to worry about […]

Starting on July 1 a new policy went into effect for organizations seeking tax-exempt status as a charity. Previously, groups pursuing this designation had to complete a detailed 26-page form, provide reams of supporting documentation and describe their intended activities in narrative form. To obtain tax-exempt status as a nonprofit now, many groups will simply […]

In recent years, the IRS has been forced to operate with a significantly lower budget. Since 2010, IRS funding has been cut by nearly $1 billion. And, after a recent meeting of the House Appropriations Committee, everyone’s favorite tax collection agency could be on the chopping block once again. On June 25, a bill was […]

Washington, D.C., loves acronyms. Nearly everything has one and they are so widespread that a Google search of “government acronyms” delivers a whole slew of sites that offer guides to help people decipher who’s who and what’s what. In the tax realm, the Internal Revenue Service provides a list of about 80 different acronyms. The […]

Teddy Roosevelt was noted for pursuing a policy based on the phrase, “speak softly, and carry a big stick.” Back in the early 20th century, that stick tended to be the use of the military. Today, there are those in Washington who might argue that such gunboat diplomacy has been replaced by more subtle tactics, […]

For all the rhetoric out of Capitol Hill about simplifying the tax code, there isn’t much action making it a reality. If anything, as the government scrambles to close purported leaks in the tax collection system, simplification appears to be just a pipe dream. Tax filing for the average person is already a significant chore. […]

Americans who have had to deal with the headaches resulting from enforcement of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act might tend to disagree with the assessment of the law issued this week by U.S. Senate investigators. The report came out on Tuesday and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations doesn’t appear to pull its punches […]

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is a looming reality in 2014. This is the year it takes effect. Under the provisions of the law, the Internal Revenue Service has the capacity to financially penalize foreign banks that fail to report if they have accounts held by U.S. taxpayers. Many experts, whether in Washington or […]