With the filing deadline for tax returns less than a month way, taxes and the IRS are probably on your mind. Although levels of tax-related anxiety vary by person, it’s safe to say that everyone fears unwanted IRS attention, especially an audit. Despite layoffs at the IRS and aspirational talk from some quarters about replacing income taxes with tariffs, the IRS and its audits are not going anywhere. It is wishful thinking to believe that the federal government—even after the department, agency, and workforce cuts being made by President Donald Trump—could ever afford to eliminate the IRS and the tax…

The IRS taxes most lawsuit settlements, and exact wording matters if you are trying to avoid that grim result. However, some settlements can be positioned as capital gain. Here are a few examples: A suit about intellectual property; A founder dispute about shares in a company; A landlord tenant dispute with a lease buyout; A suit about damage to or conversion of property; A suit about construction defects, harm to property or diminution in its value; A suit against an investment adviser for losing your money; A lemon law suit about a defective vehicle; Lower Tax Rates and Recouping Your…

Frank Bisignano, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Social Security Administration (SSA), faced questions about the agency’s future during his two-and-a-half-hour confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Finance Committee. If confirmed, Bisignano would lead the agency responsible for paying $1.6 trillion a year to 72.5 million beneficiaries, including retirees, the disabled and children who are survivors of covered workers. Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) addressed the elephant in the room at the outset, saying, “The urgency for today’s hearing couldn’t be greater.” Wyden cited a number of controversies facing the agency, which he says are causing confusion and…

Not many wealthy people plead with their government to tax them more. One of this rare sort is Victoria Lupton, who leads Seenaryo, an arts charity working in the Middle East. Lupton, who recently returned to the UK from Lebanon, feels the weight of the millions of pounds she inherited from her family. “People with the broadest shoulders need to be paying more in tax,” she stresses. Lupton joined Patriotic Millionaires UK, an offshoot of an American group calling for fairer tax policies, a year ago. But she’s become especially energized in the last month, after the surprise announcement that…

Suppose that your uncle loans you money, but later tells you not to worry about paying him back? Or suppose that you take a business loan, but the lender eventually gives up on trying to collect and tells you that your debt is forgiven? Can either one somehow be taxed? Yes, they can. With the IRS, COD is short for “cancellation of debt.” Like it or not, when a debt you owe is canceled or discharged, in many cases the tax code treats the wiped-out debt as cash income to you that you must report. If you owe $500,000 to…

When an electric vehicle glides silently past a gas station it is also rolling over a growing problem: underfunded roads. States are seeing gas tax revenues plummet due to EV and hybrid vehicle adoption, even as gas taxes continue to shoulder the cost of maintaining and expanding transportation infrastructure. As EV adoption accelerates, more states may be facing an infrastructure crisis—more cars on the roads, fewer dollars to fix those roads. The irony is apparent. The cleaner our transportation future becomes, the harder it gets to pay for the infrastructure that make their use possible. Crumbling Math of Gas Taxes…

In this episode of Tax Notes Talk, Tax Notes IRS reporter Benjamin Valdez provides an update on the IRS’s recent staffing developments and how they may affect filing season. Tax Notes Talk is a podcast produced by Tax Notes. This transcript has been edited for clarity. David D. Stewart: Welcome to the podcast. I’m David Stewart, editor in chief of Tax Notes Today International. This week: On the chopping block? In the first few months of his administration, President Trump has followed through on his promise to cut the federal workforce, and the IRS is no exception. We’ve previously discussed…

The rollover is the most frequent IRA transaction, but most people do only a few rollovers during their lifetimes. Mistake are a result of this inexperience, leading to unnecessary taxes and penalties. Most of the time a rollover that is done correctly is tax free. An rollover done incorrectly causes the rolled over amount to be included in gross income and taxed as ordinary income, except for any portion that was after-tax, or nondeductible, money. There also might be a 10% early distribution penalty for those under age age 59½. Plus, there can be a 6% penalty for making an…

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, has recently adopted an interim final rule that narrows the scope of beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting requirements under the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). This new regulation exempts “domestic reporting companies” from the BOI reporting requirements and extends deadlines for “foreign reporting companies.” This article outlines these new regulations, their implications, and the rationale behind these changes. Initial Reporting Requirements The new regulations are primarily based on the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), which was enacted as part of the broader Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020. The…

We all know the ancient adage: An old tax is a good tax. From the policymaker’s perspective, this old saw probably has some merit; old taxes are more certain and more predictable than most fancy fiscal innovations. As Leonard Burman of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center once told Marketplace, “it means that if the tax law survives long enough, we might just figure it out.” But from the taxpayer’s perspective, old taxes can also be bad ones — sometimes very bad. That’s been the case for local property taxes, according to Andrew Kahrl, a professor of history and African American…