New IRS 1099-K Rules on Payment Processor Payments

IRS employees are going back to their offices and backlogged Tax Court cases are being assigned to Appeals.

Spending Proposals IRS budget increase will result in more audits and more information reporting requirements for banks.

IRS COVID-19 Tax Relief and the People First Initiative

Summary and computation of Trust Fund Recovery Penalty

IRS will deny or revoke Passports for tax debt.

IRS Operations during Government Shutdown

New 20% Deduction for Business Income

IRS Using Software to Find Bitcoin Users

Sellers who use Ebay and Paypal or other payment processors may receive Form 1099-Ks.

Tax issues with inheriting property

The Internal Revenue Service has released its annual list of tax scams.  A summary of the list, called the "Dirty Dozen" is provided in this article.

The IRS was prepared to require tax filers to indicate on line 61 whether they and their family had health coverage during 2016. If not, taxpayers are subject to a penalty.

The purpose of the mediation is to resolve disputes in the early stages of the collection process and within 40 days after the mediation application is accepted by the IRS.  In order to be accepted into the process, taxpayers must make a good faith effort to resolve matters with the IRS collection officer followed by a conference with the officer's manager.  Acceptance into the mediation process does not mean that taxpayers can't pursue other options if mediation doesn't resolve their case.  

The IRS along with the DOJ has been aggressively pursuing offshore account holders to disclose their overseas bank accounts before it's too late.  There are significant penalties for holding accounts in certain foreign banks.  However, in an effort to encourage account holders to disclose their accounts, the IRS started the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP)  and the streamlined procedures enable taxpayer to meet their tax obligations while limiting the potential penalties for continued non-compliance.

More and more consumers are buying all kinds of stuff online--over the internet from companies such as Amazon.  Many of these sales transactions occur without the payment of sales taxes, as the selling company likely has no physical presence in the state of the purchaser.   Many brick-and-mortar companies argued that they were at a disadvantage as they were forced to compel customers to pay more (often times 8% or more) to cover the state sales tax.  

A recent decision by the Tax Court should serve as a warning to people that own multiple businesses but don't always "respect the corporate formalities" associated with each business entity. If you own more than one business and sometimes have Company A pay the expenses of Company B, or perhaps task an employee of Company A to do things for Company B, the IRS may deny your deductions.

For some the only hope of relief from unmanageable federal tax debts may be the statute of limitations on collection. In theory, the IRS has only 10 years from the date of assessment to collect. However, this 10-year limitation has many exceptions, waivers and overlapping extensions such that in all but the simplest of cases computing the correct “collection statute expiration date” is quite difficult.

Private collection agencies are now working for the IRS. In fact, for some hard to collect bills, the law now requires—rather than just permits—the IRS to use private collectors. Many people think that having the IRS farm out collection work to private contractors is a bad idea.  Here are 10 things you should know:

The IRS can deny and/or revoke passports. This is new ground in tax enforcement for the IRS.  It will make it harder for taxpayers with serious tax problems to flee the country. However, we think Congress was far more concerned with getting a delinquent taxpayer's attention. Here's why: