Tax Topics

No matter your attitude toward paying taxes to fund government programs, few people want to pay more in income taxes than they have to. With the proper advice and attention to the law, the average taxpayer should be able to find deductions to which they are entitled, and avoid an IRS audit. As ABC News […]

A claim by the IRS that you owe it back taxes puts more than your bank account at risk. The agency may also take your home or other property through what is known as a “tax lien.” As readers may know, a lien is a legal claim against another party’s property. A federal tax lien […]

A business owner must make decisions that improve the bottom line as much as possible. One of these decisions is in the way he or she hires people. Whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor has many legal implications, not the least of which is what taxes you must pay on their […]

In our last blog post, we provided our readers with some advice for reducing their federal income tax bills before the end of the year. We have some more tips for you today. Today’s tips, provided by the IRS, may apply more to the general public, instead of mostly high-income taxpayers. First, now is the […]

As we approach the end of 2014, it is time to start thinking about federal income taxes. Though it is not necessarily a pleasant thing to consider, there is good news: time remains to take action to reduce your tax bill come 2015. A few things you can do now may result in significant tax […]

For various reasons, many people whom the IRS accuses of owing a hefty income tax bill choose not to contest the claim. Perhaps they do not dispute owing the money, or the size of the debt. Maybe, for personal reasons, it is not worthwhile to go through the time and expense of fighting the IRS. […]

Americans living or holding bank accounts in Israel might want to batten down the hatches for the coming tax season. That’s the forecast from a lot of tax accountants who do work for those individuals. According to the experts, the odds that the tax returns, especially of those people filing for a child tax credit, […]

Officials tasked with implementation of the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act appear to be making solid headway in their efforts to get other nations aligned with the requirements. Treasury Department officials recently confirmed they have reached agreements with 12 governments. Bloomberg also reports they also have agreements in substance with 17 other foreign governments […]

In January of 2012, the IRS began another Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) designed to collect taxes on unreported foreign assets. The OVDP was similar to those that the agency had announced in 2009 and 2011. The program offers individuals a chance to self-report income, which minimizes the potential criminal or civil penalties that they […]

Some months ago we wrote about the case of wealthy heiress Mary Estelle Curran and how she had become a target of the Internal Revenue Service because of funds held in foreign bank accounts. It’s a story that we suspect a lot of our readers in the Washington, D.C., area found intriguing. Curran pleaded guilty […]