AB CPA Tax & Advisory

AICPA joins coalition to fight intensifying tax scams, schemes The Coalition Against Scam and Scheme Threats (CASST), convened at the request of IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel, will work toward having new protections in place by the 2025 filing season.

Businesses with dubious ERC claims have another chance with the IRS The IRS said Thursday it will reopen its voluntary disclosure program to allow businesses to correct questionable claims for the pandemic-era employee retention credit.

2024 tax software survey CPAs assess how their return preparation products performed.

IRS releases updated draft of Form 1099-DA for digital assets The most recent draft of the form for reporting digital asset transactions reflects the final regulations for custodial broker reporting that the IRS released in June.

FinCEN uses TV ad to tell businesses about BOI The PSA uses a chat between friends in a coffee shop to educate small businesses about beneficial ownership information reporting, which 32.6 million businesses must file.

ERC disallowance letters go to 28K businesses, moratorium adjusted The IRS moved the moratorium date forward into early 2024. Also, it announced sending disallowance letters to some businesses with invalid claims and plans for payments to others.

BOI requirements roll along despite concerns about too little outreach FinCEN, which oversees beneficial ownership information reports, has received just 2.7 million of the 32.6 million reports that it expects. Through June, FinCEN said, it has reached more than 90,000 stakeholders.

Tax practitioner complaint leads to review of advocate phone service A tax practitioner complained about a six-week wait for a response to help a client with a financial hardship who was owed a refund, leading to the unflattering review by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

Melancon: Supreme Court decisions are ‘big deal’ for tax pros Barry Melancon, CPA, CGMA, AICPA & CIMA’s CEO, said the decisions will create uncertainty for a profession that craves certainty.

5 new warning signs of a bad claim for pandemic-era ERC The IRS said the five signs are the result of what IRS compliance teams found while analyzing and processing claims for the employee retention credit (ERC). The Service plans to briefly reopen its voluntary disclosure program.

Funding spurs IRS improvements, but challenges remain, commissioner says Commissioner Danny Werfel said the IRS is “reversing situations that have long hampered the IRS and frustrated taxpayers.” Treasury and the IRS announced continued improvements in digital systems, attributing those to funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.

FinCEN estimates millions of hours will be spent seeking BOI access Almost 16,000 entities will spend over 8.7 million hours seeking access to beneficial ownership information in the first year, FinCEN estimated in a new notice.

Final and proposed regs. issued on retirement plan RMDs The final regulations reflect changes to the required minimum distribution rules made by the SECURE Act and SECURE 2.0 and generally follow proposed regulations issued in 2022.

IRS collects $1 billion from high-income people who owed back taxes The IRS is collecting on tax liabilities that were not “even in dispute,” Commissioner Danny Werfel said, but the IRS did not previously have the resources to pursue payment.

Proposed regs. address interest recapture on excess COVID-19 credits The proposed regulations apply to overpayments of interest on erroneous refunds of COVID-19 credits paid on or after July 2.

Tax pros: IRS improving, but getting the right answer takes too long A survey by the AICPA shows that almost two-thirds of tax professionals say it takes over 90 days to get a substantive response from the IRS to correspondence.

Final regs. issued for 1% excise tax on corporate stock repurchases The final regulations provide guidance regarding the reporting and payment of the excise tax on repurchases of corporate stock made after Dec. 31, 2022.

IRS issues final regs. on reporting requirements for digital assets The final regulations require custodial brokers to report transactions on Form 1099-DA, which the IRS will release soon. A different set of final regulations with rules for decentralized, or noncustodial, brokers will be issued later.

Supreme Court overrules 40-year-old Chevron doctrine The Court held that the APA requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority and not to defer to an agency’s interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.

Settlement offers to be sent on syndicated conservation easements The IRS is making a time-limited settlement offer to certain taxpayers who participated in syndicated conservation easements. The terms will require “substantial concession” of income tax benefits and the imposition of some penalties.

‘Unconscionable’ delays in ID theft cases mar IRS tax season: report In her midyear report to Congress, National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins writes that, as of April, the IRS was taking over 22 months to resolve cases in its identity theft victim assistance unit, which had about 500,000 unresolved cases.

Final regs. issued on conservation easement deduction disallowance The IRS on Monday issued final regulations providing guidance on the new rule that disallows charitable contribution deductions for certain conservation easement contributions by partnerships and other passthrough entities.

Supreme Court decision on Chevron doctrine will affect tax pros The Court will rule by the end of its term Friday on the fate of the Chevron doctrine, which requires courts to give deference to a reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute by a government agency, including the IRS.

Exceptions to penalty on early retirement plan distributions outlined The IRS issued guidance for exceptions for emergency personal expense distributions and for domestic abuse victim distributions.

IRS: Review of 1 million ERC claims reveals most show signs of risk The IRS says that at least 10% of employee retention credit claims will be denied in the coming weeks and that at least 60% of claims show an “unacceptable” level of risk. The IRS will leave in place its moratorium on processing a majority of recent claims.

Supreme Court issues narrow opinion upholding Sec. 965 transition tax The Supreme Court upheld the mandatory repatriation tax as a valid exercise of Congress’s taxing authority. The Court did not reach the question of whether income must be realized to be taxable.

Regs. cover green energy incentive wage and apprenticeship requirements Under new final regulations issued by the IRS, taxpayers can generally increase the base amount of certain credits or deductions by five times when they meet prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements.

IRS moves to end ‘shell game’ of basis-shifting transactions The Service said it will release new proposed regulations and a revenue ruling to challenge the use of basis-shifting transactions used by complex partnerships in moves that could add over $50 billion to government coffers over 10 years.

IRS gives another limited estimated corporate AMT underpayment waiver The IRS issued a notice extending earlier relief for a corporation’s failure to pay the part of estimated income tax attributable to the revised corporate alternative minimum tax.

9 months into ERC claim processing moratorium, still a waiting game New employee retention credit (ERC) claims continue to be filed, and the IRS still has a backlog of claims from before a processing moratorium was announced in September. National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says “soon” is the answer to when the moratorium will end. Meanwhile, some business o...