Life, as the saying goes, is full of choices. For holders of foreign bank accounts, those choices continue to require up-to-date information and an awareness of effective tax strategy. Offshore account enforcement is a key area of emphasis for the IRS. The agency recently joined with European countries in an […]
The IRS is supposed to be accessible to taxpayers. That is why the agency’s Taxpayer Advocate service is starting to conduct a pilot project on the use of teleconferences between case workers and taxpayers who have questions. IRS audits are another possible forum for video conferences. Nina Olson, the National Taxpayer […]
It’s no secret that dealing with the IRS is best done with plenty of documentation. To protect yourself against an audit, or to handle one if it occurs, it’s helpful to have your tax records in good order. When you do, IRS audits are much more manageable. So you’d think […]
A basic principle of the tax collection system should be fairness. For the system to work, people of all income levels -rich, poor and middle class alike – should get equal treatment from the IRS. And yet IRS audits are very much skewed toward higher income taxpayers. That is what the evidence […]
A smart tax strategy means looking for all of the legitimate deductions that may benefit you. Even if some of them seem downright silly, it’s still important to know about the ones that may apply to you. After all, there is big difference between using deductions intelligently, on the one […]
An IRS audit isn’t a criminal proceeding in which the right to confront accusers literally applies. There is still a big difference, however, between face-to-face IRS audits on the one hand, and so-called “corr exams” (correspondence-based exams) on the other. This week, the National Taxpayer Advocate questioned the increasing use of correspondence […]
Marriage means many things – but not always that two people are in complete concert on tax matters. That is why federal law allows an innocent spouse to avoid being held responsible for his or her spouse’s tax problems. Sometimes it takes an experienced tax attorney to convince the IRS […]
For years, the American marketplace has been evolving toward a workforce in which more and more people are not traditional employees. The ranks of contractors, freelancers, consultants and assorted vendors have grown for many reasons, and the downsizing unleashed by the Great Recession only accelerated this trend. There are many […]
Be proactive, Stephen F. Covey urged his readers in “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” Over twenty years after the book’s firs publication, this remains excellent advice. Applying it to tax preparation makes good sense, too. This includes taking all reasonable steps to avoid IRS audits. Some of those steps […]
The IRS is going after assets held in foreign accounts like never before. First it was not one but two iterations of the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI). Coming soon is a new law called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). FATCA is an offshore account enforcement law passed […]