Start by knowing that the IRS or software vendor will never ask you for your personal information and security questions via email. Please take some time to read our online information security tips below. Always be suspicious of unexpected emails, even if it appears to come from a legitimate source. Triple check emails before ever […]
Please be on the alert for fraudulent email messages requesting sensitive personal and business tax information. These emails can appear to come from many different sources pretending to be the IRS, Federal Direct, State Departments of Revenue, Tax Software Companies, etc. One such recent IRS tax scam email has been identified as coming from a […]
No, an ITIN holder cannot claim credits for back year’s returns. The law changed in Dec. 2015 with HR2029. This means no Child Tax Credit or American Opportunity Credit (among others) for any year beyond a current and timely filed tax return. If you file late, as in after April 15th, you will NOT get […]
Today, the IRS re-opened the PTIN System and is again issuing PTINs. Since the IRS is enjoined from charging a fee, it will issue the PTINs at no cost to the preparer. If you currently have a PTIN, you can now log into your account to make changes and view CPE information as normal.
Another IRS scam email has been plaguing the tax preparation industry for months now, scammers have crafted a fake IRS s-services page that is identical to the real one. They blast password expiration/reset emails to everyone who has a PTIN as that info is open information and many PTIN holders are also EROs or hold active […]
It was no surprise that IRS Commissioner Shulman announced today that he is ending his term. We knew he planned on it. He ends his term just after the presidential election. Shulman has been the Commissioner since March 24, 2008 and his term ends on the 9th day of November of this year. He leaves […]
About five years ago, Walmart decided it really only needed two major tax preparation firms to satisfy the needs of its patrons, H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt. Before this decision, Liberty had operated 30-40 seasonal kiosks in Walmarts around the country. In a crazy game of tax-franchise “wife-swapping,” Jackson Hewitt recently assumed all of the […]
There are more than 11 million taxpayers who have requested an automatic six-month extension this year and have yet to file. October 15 is the deadline, but there are exceptions. There are always exceptions. Are you serving in Iraq or Afghanistan or a combat zone? If so, you can stop reading, but the majority of […]
The IRS has two main goals when it comes to ideal operations: fraud prevention and fast disbursements of refunds. These two distinctly different goals can be difficult to attain as the application of one could hinder the other. Essentially, the DOJ plans to take information from local prosecutions to identify patterns in the cases and […]
Information from the Return Preparer Office: The Return Preparer Office will be mailing more than 312,000 letters this week to people who have not yet scheduled an appointment to take the Registered Tax Return Preparer test. (SAMPLE RTRP NOTICE LETTER) This summer the RPO sent two different emails on this topic, but the RPO Office […]