By: Derek Wheeler Today, July 15th, the IRS’ People First Initiative will come to an end. Implemented at the end of March as COVID-19 began spreading throughout the United States and large parts of the country began to shutdown, the People First Initiative relieved taxpayers of many impending tax burdens. Filing deadlines were extended, installment payment agreements were suspended, and
By: Heather L. Marello and Kevin M. Murphy During a recent web conference, IRS Large Business and International Division Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell warned that IRS is gearing up to initiate hundreds of non-filer audits against high income individuals and those with related flow-through entities. The original announcement of this initiative came in July, 2019, when LB&I added high income non-filers
The IRS has issued a warning to taxpayers to be cautious about phishing scams pertaining to IRS payments during the COVID-19 pandemic. These scams can lead to serious tax-related fraud and identity theft. Taxpayers should be mindful of this if they receive any phone calls, emails, text messages, social media or website requests for money or personal information. Taxpayers are
There have been a significant number of recent IRS updates that impact taxpayers from both a controversy and compliance perspective. While our focus is to always provide the absolute best tax controversy updates and counsel for our clients, the IRS is currently modifying many current compliance procedures in the wake of the pandemic that are important to pass on to
Last week, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that the filing deadline for certain returns has been extended from April 15, 2020 to July 15, 2020 (Notice 2020-18) and they also provided some payment relief in response to the COVID-19 national emergency. Although this is an ever-evolving and fluid situation, for the time being the Treasury
Treasury Secretary announced today that the IRS’ tax filing deadline has been extended to July 15th. This will be welcome news to not only taxpayers but the tax practitioners who were under the gun to get tax returns filed by April 15th in this tumultuous and uncertain environment resulting from the coronavirus outbreak. With this new change, both the tax
The Trump Administration announced its new economic stimulus plan today which includes an option for taxpayers to delay their tax payments for 90 days. The plan allows deferrals of up to $1 million for individuals and up to $10 million for corporations on their tax payments for up to 90 days. Taxpayers are still encouraged to file their tax returns
By: Randall P. Andreozzi, Esq. In 2016 the IRS issued Notice 2016-66, which identifies certain micro captive insurance transactions as potentially abusive. The Notice generally describes the abusive arrangement as one where owners of closely-held entities engage in a captive insurance arrangement that purports to ensure against certain risks associated with the business. The business pays “premiums” to the captive
By: Randall P. Andreozzi, Esq. Cryptocurrency investors be warned. The IRS is coming for you. Over the course of several years, the IRS has methodically ramped up its efforts to tackle the burgeoning cryptocurrency market. As taxpayers enter this market, it’s important that they understand that virtual currency transactions are taxable events involving actual assets and that the IRS treats
By: Kevin Murphy, Esq. In our most recent blog post, we discussed the importance of timely payment of payroll taxes and how serious the IRS is taking the issue of criminalizing the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty. As a follow up, we wanted to pass along a recent news release from the IRS that highlights the conclusion of an unprecedented two