Tax News

Employer payments for your health coverage are fully tax free. This rule does not change in 2014 when the health care mandates go into effect. But are cash payments that an employer pays to an employe...

Are your personal and business emails private? Last week the IRS indicated to members of Congress that it had the authority to read them. In a statement issued on April 22, 2013, the IRS clarified the...

As part of President Obama’s 2014 budget, there are proposals to increase federal taxes and fees by more than $1 trillion over 10 years. The increases would result from:Capping all itemized ded...

Usually, a filing extension does not give you more time to pay your taxes. But this is a different year. Because the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, enacted on January 2, 2013, delayed the issua...

Are your taxes going up or down? It depends on which tax plan you read. Both sides of the political aisle have proposed sweeping but dramatically different tax reform packages for Congress to consider...

The interest rate that individuals will pay on underpayments remains at 3% for the second quarter of 2013. The interest rate that the IRS will pay on overpayments (tax refunds) will also be 3%. These ...

In his annual State of the Union Address on February 12, 2013, President Obama called for tax reform. In particular, he urged corporate tax reform and simplification to help small businesses. And he m...

Social Security benefits paid to retirees may be fully tax free or included in gross income at 50% or 85%, depending on the amount of benefits, tax-free interest, and overall income. But what about So...

It took until January 1, but both the House and Senate finally approved and sent to the President a fiscal cliff agreement that extends the Bush-era tax cuts beyond 2012 for the vast majority of taxpa...

Bradley Birkenfeld is now a very wealthy man, having just received $104 million from the IRS as a whistleblower award. He provided key information about tax fraud by the Swiss bank UBS AG. The IRS exp...

When you self-prepare a tax return using software or a web-based program such as TurboTax, you continue to be responsible for the output on the return. You cannot claim that mistakes are the results o...

An offer in compromise (OIC) is an arrangement with the IRS to pay less than the full tax amount owed for those suffering certain financial hardships. The IRS announced an expansion of the program to ...

The U.S. Supreme Court has laid to rest an ongoing controversy over whether a taxpayer’s understatement of basis, which causes less gain to be reported, amounts to an omission of gross income. The r...

The Tax Foundation reports that Tax Freedom Day comes 4 days later than last year. Tax Freedom Day, April 17 this year, is the date on which you have earned enough money to pay your taxes. In other wo...

The current federal individual income tax rates are set to expire at the end of 2012. Should Congress raise or lower the tax rates next year or keep them the same? That’s the debate that has begun. ...

The Senate Finance Committee learned that the number of identity theft cases that the IRS received between 2009 and 2011 nearly tripled. To better protect taxpayers, one senator introduced the Identit...

If you’ve been griping about IRS service, put your money where your mouth is! The Treasury is now accepting nominations for volunteers to serve a 3-year term on the National Taxpayer Advisory Panel ...

Just before the Presidents’ Day holiday, Congress passed an extension of the 2-percentage-point reduction in Social Security taxes paid by workers. The cut had been set to expire on February 29, 201...

Homeowners who claimed the first-time homebuyer credit in 2008 are subject to an annual repayment of 1/15th of the credit until it has been fully repaid to Uncle Sam. The credit effectively was an int...

The president’s State of the Union address on January 24, 2012, contained several tax mentions:For tax “fairness”: A promise to enforce the so-called “Buffett rule” so that wealthy exec...