Blog & Newsroom

The IRS recently issued a warning to taxpayers who are seriously delinquent on their tax debt - you may be unable to attain a new passport or renew your existing one.

First, a joke about catch up…

“Three tomatoes are walking down the street…papa tomato, mama tomato and baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind and papa tomato gets really angry, goes back and squishes him and yells… CATCH UP!!!!”

That joke isn’t going to get a lot of laughs at the IRS (alright, I admit it won’t get laughs anywhere else either) as they try to get caught up after the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The shutdown, which lasted 35 days and affected the majority of the IRS’s workforce, has had a profound impact on an agency that had already been running very lean.

Effective January 1, 2018, new rules took effect for partnership taxpayers. These "Partnership Audit Rules" affect how taxes (as well as penalties and interest) are assessed when a partnership has been audited by IRS.

The IRS announced this week in IRS Notice 2019-11 that it would not penalize taxpayers whose tax withholding and estimated tax payments fell short last year due to failing to change their withholding under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).

Previously, we shared how the Whitehouse stated there would be no disruption to tax filing or the issuance of refunds.

On Tuesday, the IRS shared some details of its revamped contingency plan for operations during the government shutdown.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve probably heard about the battle between the President and Congress over funding for a southern border wall. The government “shutdown” created by the impasse has created a lot of uncertainty about many government-provided services.

The IRS has announced the 2019 standard mileage rates used for calculating deductible costs for operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes. 

The IRS recently issued guidance on tax withholding for the coming year. The redesign of the W-4 has been tabled until 2020 after the proposed form met with heavy criticism from groups like the American Society of CPAs. The W-4 for 2019 will be essentially the same as the 2018 with the exception of changes to the “withholding allowance” terminology used in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA.)

The Internal Revenue Service issued a warning about a fairly sophisticated new phishing scam. Phishing, a technique where a malefactor impersonates someone (in this case the IRS,) in an effort to steal sensitive information such as user names, passwords and account numbers.

The IRS has recently issued new limits on qualifying pensions and retirement related accounts (see IRS Notice 2018-83.) The new amounts, which are a cost-of-living adjustment, become effective January 1, 2019.