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Amid a growing number of scams and fraudulent activity surrounding the Employee Retention Credit, the Internal Revenue Service will stop processing new claims, effective immediately, at least through the end of the year.


The Department of the Treasury is reaching out to Congress to get the appropriate tools to combat the wave of Employee Retention Credit fraud and other future issues.


The Internal Revenue Service detailed plans on some of the high-income taxpayers that will be targeted for more compliance efforts in the coming fiscal year.


The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration is calling on the Internal Revenue Service to improve its training of revenue agents that will be focused on auditing high-income taxpayers.


The IRS has provided additional interim guidance in Notice 2023-64 for the application of the new corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT). This guidance clarifies and supplements the CAMT guidance provided in Notice 2023-7, I.R.B. 2023-3, 390, and Notice 2023-20, I.R.B. 2023-10, 523, which were issued earlier this year. The IRS anticipates that the forthcoming proposed regulations on the CAMT will be consistent with this interim guidance and that they will apply for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2024. Taxpayers may rely on the interim guidance for tax years ending on or before the date the forthcoming proposed regulations are published, and for any tax year that begins before January 1, 2024.


Taxpayers may rely on a notice that describes proposed regulations that will address the amortization of qualified research and experimentation (R&E) expenses. Before 2022, R&E expenses were currently deductible, but the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (P.L. 115-97) replaced the deduction with a five-year amortization period (15 years for foreign research).


Taxpayers may rely on proposed regulations that detail how to satisfy the prevailing wage and apprenticeship (PWA) requirements for bonus amounts that may apply to several energy and business credits. The regs also explain the correction and penalty provisions that allow taxpayers to claim the bonus credits even if they failed to satisfy the PWA tests. Comments are requested.


The IRS has provided guidance on the income tax treatment of payments made by states in 2023 and later years. In IRS News Release 2023-23, February 10, 2023, the IRS clarified the federal tax status of special payments made by 21 states in 2022 that were mainly related to the COVID-19 pandemic, with varying terms in the types of paymentspayment amounts, and eligibility rules.


National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins is calling on the Internal Revenue Service to alter how it deals with supervisory review of penalties.


Taxpayers, and the accounting and legal professionals who represent them, need to be prepared as the Internal Revenue Service has begun compliance work on those who own and trade in cryptocurrencies.


It is never too early to begin planning for the 2016 filing season, the IRS has advised in seven new planning tips published on its website. Although the current filing season has just ended, there are steps that taxpayers can take now to avoid a tax bill when April 2016 rolls around. For example, the IRS stated that taxpayers can adjust their withholding, take stock of any changes in income or family circumstances, maintain accurate tax records, and more, in order to reduce the probability of a surprise tax bill when the next filing season arrives.


The IRS expects to receive more than 150 million individual income tax returns this year and issue billions of dollars in refunds. That huge pool of refunds drives scam artists and criminals to steal taxpayer identities and claim fraudulent refunds. The IRS has many protections in place to discover false returns and refund claims, but taxpayers still need to be proactive.


The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), enacted in 2010, requires certain U.S. taxpayers to report their interests in specified foreign financial assets.  The reporting requirement may apply if the assets have an aggregate value exceeding certain thresholds. The IRS has released Form 8938, Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets, for this reporting requirement under FATCA.

In light of the IRS’s new Voluntary Worker Classification Settlement Program (VCSP), which it announced this fall, the distinction between independent contractors and employees has become a “hot issue” for many businesses. The IRS has devoted considerable effort to rectifying worker misclassification in the past, and continues the trend with this new program.  It is available to employers that have misclassified employees as independent contractors and wish to voluntarily rectify the situation before the IRS or Department of Labor initiates an examination.