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The Internal Revenue Service warned taxpayers today to be on the lookout for a summer surge of tax scams as identity thieves continue pounding out a barrage of email and text messages promising tax refunds or offers to help 'fix' tax problems. The latest email schemes touch on a variety of topics, but many center around promises about a third round of Economic Impact Payments. The IRS is seeing hundreds of complaints daily pouring into phishing@irs.gov about this scam, which has an embedded URL link that takes people to phishing website to steal sensitive taxpayer information.

As a preteen, one of Aidan Hunt's favorite times of year was the day after his father filed taxes. That was when he was allowed to play with the software his dad used. "After he had finished using it, I would just make some different returns and try out the different options and see what they did," Hunt, who recently turned 21, said in an interview with the JofA. "You could say I was interested in seeing the different forms that would produce when you check all the different options. I just thought it was cool how many different forms and lines and possibilities that there were."

With the year already past the halfway point, a review of some of the more notable developments affecting taxpayers and their CPAs is in order. The following is a brief summary of some of the major developments to give a flavor of the types of issues addressed; a full list of the 40 most important developments — selected by David De Jong, CPA, LLM, a partner at Stein Sperling Bennett De Jong Driscoll in Rockville, Maryland — follows below.

The IRS is progressing on its plan to become more accessible to taxpayers and tax professionals, with improved or new online accounts, mobile-friendly forms, and a new platform for Forms 1099-K, Payment Card and Third Party Network Transactions, just in time for the first tax season with stricter requirements for filing those, Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a call with reporters.

Thanks to Inflation Reduction Act resources, the IRS delivered dramatically improved service in filing season 2023. IRS achieved an 87% level of service. Through the end of filing season, IRS answered 3 million more calls, cut phone wait times to three minutes from 28 minutes, served 140,000 more taxpayers in-person, digitized 80 times more returns than in 2022 through the adoption of new scanning technology, cleared the backlog of unprocessed 2022 individual tax returns with no errors, launched two new digital tools, and enabled a new direct-deposit refund option for taxpayers with amended returns.

The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department plan to issue final regulations related to required minimum distributions from retirement accounts in light of the SECURE 2.0 Act.

New report shows many states, unlike CT, ordered regressive tax cuts that will push their budgets into deficit

The Internal Revenue Service warned taxpayers today to be on the lookout for a new scam mailing that tries to mislead people into believing they are owed a refund.

A few clicks of the mouse could save practitioners a ton of time by assisting them in determining whether they need to apply the requirements of AR-C Section 70, Preparation of Financial Statements, when their bookkeeping or accounting services result in financial statements.

The IRS reduced its backlog of unprocessed original tax returns by 80% from the 2022 to the 2023 tax filing season and improved its phone service, but real and permanent change requires significant IT upgrades, the national taxpayer advocate said Wednesday in her midyear report to Congress.

The Internal Revenue Service improved its performance during this year's tax season, catching up on much of its backlog, but is still behind on dealing with all the amended returns and correspondence it received this year, according to a new report.

It has been five years since the U.S. Supreme Court heard South Dakota v. Wayfair. The court decided on June 21, 2018, that states could tax purchases made from out-of-state sellers, even if the seller does not have a physical presence in the taxing state. Much of what has happened in state tax law since then has been based on that decision.

The IRS on Wednesday issued Notice 2023-42, which grants penalty relief for corporations that did not pay estimated tax in connection with the new corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT), saying the move is "in the interest of sound tax administration."

The Department of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service today issued Notice 2023-42PDF, which will grant penalty relief for corporations that did not pay estimated tax in connection with the new corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT).

The words "IRS" and "paperless" do not typically go together, so it was not surprising when the national taxpayer advocate was greeted with laughter when she coupled the two words during AICPA & CIMA ENGAGE 2023 in Las Vegas. And not just that, she said the IRS version of paperless is a goal in the not-so-distant future.

It began as a way to help business owners and workers by providing a tax credit for employers that continued to pay employees at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the employee retention credit (ERC) became so rife with abuse that the IRS cannot keep up with the legitimate filings.

AI such as ChatGPT is changing the world as we know it. As a practitioner, can it help you better serve your clients, support your staff, and prepare you and your practice for the future? Let's first take a look at what ChatGPT is as we attempt to answer these questions. We will then provide an example of a conversation between this powerful AI chatbot and a hypothetical client and let you be the judge.

The Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service today issued proposed regulations for applicants investing in certain solar and wind powered electricity generation facilities.

The debt-limit deal would rein in spending on some federal government services but barely dents the roughly $20 trillion in combined budget deficits projected over the next decade.

The IRS is facing substantial cuts to funds meant to rebuild its workforce and modernize its legacy IT systems over the next decade, as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a first-ever government default.