Earlier this month, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) raised eyebrows when it requested access to sensitive taxpayer data at the IRS. According to various reports, DOGE is seeking access to the Integrated Data Retrieval System (IDRS). You can think of the IDRS as a master file, which includes tax returns and other taxpayer information, including bank records. Taxpayers and tax professionals alike have expressed concerns about the safety of their data. Some have even suggested that they will not file or pay their taxes until the matter is resolved. In addition to concerns about whether allowing access is…

The Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has pressed the IRS for permission to access individual tax return information of US households and businesses. While the DOGE team says it needs taxpayer data to search out “waste, fraud, and abuse,” such a move puts at risk deeply personal information on more than 150 million tax filers, with no clear benefit. DOGE staffers already accessed filers’ tax refund information through the database of the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Fiscal Service, the office that processes nearly all federal government payments. For example, that database includes the bank account information of every…

Many people confuse filing their taxes with doing tax planning. These are two very different services; ignoring this fact can cause you to be forced to leave the IRS a huge tip. Each year, around April 15, millions of Americans are forced to file their taxes; there is literally a deadline and penalties for not filing in a timely manner. However, no such deadlines or direct penalties exist for not doing proactive tax planning. That being said, the costs of not at least exploring the tax strategies available to you can be devastating for your financial security. Is My Tax…

We are about to face a new crisis in Washington,—the federal government may shut down in mid-March because it isn’t legally authorized to spend beyond that date. Only prompt action by President Trump and Congress can prevent the shutdown. But the shutdown may happen because of battles between Trump and the Democrats over spending, and fights among the Republicans themselves. We Could Have A Government Shutdown In March First, the problem. Spending for the federal government in our current fiscal year is only legally authorized until March 14. Congress failed to pass regular annual spending appropriations and instead resorting to…

The IRS will cut thousands of workers on probationary status as part of ongoing efforts by the Trump administration to reduce costs. It’s unclear how the cuts could impact the tax filing season, which kicked off on January 27, 2025. The cuts follow on the heels of other reductions to IRS personnel and the IRS budget. Cuts According to an official email viewed by Forbes, some of those cuts will be made this week. At least 3,500 IRS employees in the Small Business/Self-Employed (SB/SE) division of the IRS are expected to lose their jobs. The SB/SE division, currently headed up…

A court ruling in the Eastern District of Texas has ruled that beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting requirements under the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) are back in effect. And, as the government promised, companies have been granted a little extra time to file. Court Ruling On February 5, 2025, the Department of Justice filed an appeal in Smith v. U.S., one of two CTA winding through the court system in Texas. In its appeal, the government sought to stay an earlier preliminary injunction that would prohibit FinCEN from enforcing the CTA. In Smith, Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle, initially found that…

The future of federal taxes and the IRS under President Trump is unclear for many reasons. The uncertainty affects both the current tax-return season and individual tax-planning decisions that look beyond this year. The Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (TCJA), a wide-ranging set of tax-law changes that took effect in 2018, is set to expire after 2025. While the tax cuts of the TCJA seem likely to be extended beyond 2025, the details are already mired in preliminary wrangling in Congress, making it hard to predict exactly what the extended tax law will look like. Meanwhile, the IRS is experiencing…

In this episode of Tax Notes Talk, Tax Notes contributing editor and historian Joseph J. Thorndike discusses President Trump’s referral to “the forgotten man” and how the phrase connects to a conservative case for taxing the rich. 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: memories of the forgotten man. On January 20 President Trump was officially sworn in to his second term in office. Although his official tax policies have…

Tariffs are tricky — not for economists, who tend to view them with an air of clinical (if generally hostile) abstraction, but for voters, who find them complicated. Sure, they raise prices for consumers, and nobody likes that. But tariffs also protect jobs — at least some of the time — and that can be appealing, even to people otherwise distressed by inflation. The tension between consumption and job security can be sectoral, dividing voters who work in protected industries from those who don’t. It can also be regional: Voters who live where foreign competition has wreaked havoc on employment…

The FICA Tip Credit offers a significant tax benefit to employers in the service industry, particularly those whose employees receive a considerable portion of their income through tips. The FICA tip credit targets the employer’s share of FICA taxes (taxes for Social Security and Medicare) levied on their employees’ tips employees. Eligible businesses should employ this credit to alleviate their tax burden. The primary function of the FICA Tip Credit is to alleviate the financial strain on employers by offsetting the FICA taxes paid on tips that employees earn beyond the federal minimum wage. This credit benefits businesses in the…