Taxes

Reasonable cause is a common defense to civil tax penalties. Generally, taxpayers fall within the contours of reasonable cause if they can show that they exercised ordinary business care and prudence—for example, with respect to a filing obligation or regarding an item claimed on a tax return. Taxpayers who use tax professionals can sometimes also

Tony Townley is one of the cofounders of Zaxby’s a chain of fast casual restaurants. There are more than 900 locations in 17 states. Goldman Sachs acquired a major stake to help accelerate growth in 2020. Zaxby’s has concentrated on selling chicken fingers and wings with special sauces in the Southeast. This story is about

Total charitable giving to support the work of nonprofits dropped 10.5% last year, compared to 2021 (when adjusted for inflation), according to a report from Giving USA. Giving by individuals alone fell by 13.4%. There may be a variety of explanations for the drop, but two of the biggest? The economy and the Tax Cuts

“Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist,” John Maynard Keynes famously observed. Apparently, Charles G. Moore and Kathleen F. Moore are in thrall to a certain Columbia University economist from the early 20th century. Edwin R.A. Seligman is a big player

The House and Senate passed a bill to keep the federal government funded through early next year. This avoids a shut down and all the costs that entails. But it also leans on a set of “continuing resolutions”, which essentially tell government agencies to do what they have been. Bypassing the regular budget process this

Taxpayers who participate in international transactions potentially subject themselves to a panoply of international information return filing obligations. Take this simple example. John, a U.S. citizen, establishes and funds a foreign grantor trust. After creating the trust, John also travels to the foreign jurisdiction and sets up a foreign bank account in the foreign trust’s

A Pennsylvania couple has pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the United States related to their efforts to evade paying employment taxes. According to court documents and statements made in court, Theodore Shearba and Jennifer Cemini (who are not married) owned and operated a landscaping and excavation business in Perkiomenville, Pennsylvania. Perkiomenville is located just

WeWork’s collapse shows how working from home is changing commercial real estate and compounding the sector’s economic challenges. Once hailed as the future of office development, the company recently filed for bankruptcy. WeWork was born and grew after the Great Recession, opening its first Manhattan location in 2011. The company rented out offices for work-sharing.

That collective sigh you just heard? Despite weeks of posturing, the House passed legislation to keep the federal government’s lights on. The bill now moves to the Senate, days ahead of the deadline. If it feels like deja vu all over again, you’re not wrong. Earlier this year, there were worries that the government would

Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) decision to drop his bid for the Republican presidential nomination means voters have lost their best opportunity to hear a serious tax policy debate among his party’s White House hopefuls. Unlike his rivals, Scott campaigned on a thoughtful, relatively detailed agenda that married taxes with his conservative social and economic views.

Seven years ago, the legal and financial worlds were rocked by the release of the Panama Papers—11.5 million confidential documents leaked from the former Panamian law firm, Mossack Fonseca. At the time, it was easy to be smug about the lack of well-known American names in the Papers—and conspiracy theories were flying. But despite the

First, the tax authorities targeted soda, plastics, and hazardous chemicals with excise taxes. Now they’re coming for fast-fashion companies like Shein and Temu. Imposing special taxes on mass-produced $16 party dresses? That seems like a lot of effort for some low-hanging fashion fruit. But the fruit may not be as poor quality as it appears

A Texas man, Lamar “Cory” Thompson, formerly of Chicago, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for mail fraud related to a scheme to fraudulently obtain tax refunds from the IRS. Thompson had the help of others in his scheme—only they didn’t all know it. According to court documents, from approximately June 2010 through

The IRS received a significant increase in operating funds after Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in mid-2022. More recently, on September 8, 2023, the IRS announced that it would use at least some of those funds to focus on compliance initiatives associated with high-income and high-wealth taxpayers. Although the announcement covers numerous compliance

The IRS has announced the annual inflation adjustments for the year 2024, including tax rate schedules, tax tables and cost-of-living adjustments. These are the official numbers for the tax year 2024—that begins Jan. 1, 2024. They are not the numbers that you’ll use to prepare your 2023 tax returns in 2024 (you’ll find those official

Since the birth of the U.S. tax system more than a century ago, taxpayers have made purposeful attempts to avoid paying taxes that they lawfully owe. In a standard case, a taxpayer may seek to reduce his or her tax liabilities through omitting income or inflating deductions, or both. Taxpayers who engage in these activities

The IRS has announced the annual inflation adjustments for the year 2024. That includes not only tax rate schedules, tax tables and cost-of-living adjustments for returns (you can find those here)—but penalties for late returns and missed forms. Here’s a look at what you need to know. Failure To File A Tax Return For returns

Even legislators with a keen interest in protecting the U.S. corporate tax base from profit shifting should probably resist the urge to jump into the middle of Microsoft’s high-profile transfer pricing dispute with the IRS. Microsoft’s recent disclosure that the IRS believes the company paid $28.9 billion less in corporate income taxes than it owed

Introduction Most compensation earned by taxpayers is subject to employment taxes. When it comes to sole proprietors, independent contractors, and partners, employment taxes include those imposed by the Self-Employment Contributions Act (“SECA”). Rates in recent years have reached 15.3 percent of an individual’s “net earnings from self-employment,” a category which generally covers his or her

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has notified clients that the company will turn over user information to the IRS. The announcement follows a lengthy legal battle that began in 2021 when Kraken received a John Doe summons from the IRS. A John Doe summons is an order that does not explicitly identify the person but instead identifies