Income Tax

March 14, 2015 

Reports are popping up around the country that unlicensed and crooked income tax preparers are telling taxpayers that they need to make the Affordable Health Care Act's individual shared responsibility payments directly to the tax preparer. Obamacare is..

March 13, 2015 

It’s the middle of income tax season and the last thing on most practitioners’ minds is how to engage even more with even more clients. Not that you don’t want to. But with the usual chaos surrounding this the busy season, plus the added stress of new laws, courtesy of the Affordable Care Act, time...…

Taija Sparkman

March 10, 2015 

The Internal Revenue Service says it is seeking civic-minded volunteers to serve on the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP), a federal advisory committee that listens to taxpayers, identifies major taxpayer concerns and makes recommendations for improving IRS s

March 10, 2015 

As a long-time tax practitioner, I’ve conducted thousands of client interviews over the years. I’ve learned that when a client comes prepared for their interview, it results in less need for post-meeting follow-up calls and document gathering, which ...

March 8, 2015 

Accountants are eligible for the promotion, and they can select as many as five of their small-business clients with fewer than 50 employees to also participate free of charge through the end of April. ADP’s HR HelpDesk is staffed by HR ...

March 8, 2015 

Sometimes the “easiest” tax return decisions aren’t so simple after all. Take the basic choice of your tax filing status. Usually, it’s a no-brainer for a married couple to file a joint return, but there are a few notable exceptions. When you dig a ...

March 5, 2015 

It’s rare when tax return preparers advise their clients to look a gift horse in the mouth. But it might happen when a taxpayer is affected by the limits for deducting investment interest expenses. Depending on the situation, it may make sense to elect preferential tax treatment for certain long-term capital gains or qualified dividends...…

March 5, 2015 

The IRS compiles annually The Dirty Dozen, listing a variety of common scams taxpayers may encounter any time during the year. Many of these con games peak during filing season as people prepare their tax returns or hire someone to do so. Some of the more

March 4, 2015 

With a little work and some stick-to-it-iveness, you might be able to save a client hundreds or even thousands of tax dollars on a 2014 return.

March 4, 2015 

Thanks to the new tax extenders law passed at the end of last year – the Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014 (TIPA) – parents with children in college have not one, not two, but three tax breaks to choose from on their 2014 returns. But some of your upper

March 4, 2015 

Under the “kiddie tax,” if unearned income of a dependent child who is under age 19 or a full-time student under age 24 exceeds an annual threshold, the excess is taxed at the top rate of the child’s parents. The threshold on 2014 returns is $2,000.

March 3, 2015 

Continuing its enforcement push against refund fraud and identity theft, the Internal Revenue Service today announced the Top Ten Identity Theft Prosecutions for Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14). The ongoing efforts to bring identity thieves to justice ...