It isn't every day that a dispute over a $14,729 tax bill gets every corner of the tax world paying attention—but the potential ramifications of the dispute now before the Supreme Court go far beyond that. The court will hear oral arguments next month in Moore v. United States, in which Charles and Kathleen Moore, a retired couple from Washington state, are arguing that the “mandatory repatriation tax” should be declared unconstitutional. That tax, enacted as part of the 2017 tax-overhaul...

A pair of high-profile fraud trials are competing for headlines out of New York courtrooms, with accountants serving as marquee witnesses. Accounting has been a common theme across both the criminal trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, who faces federal fraud charges for allegedly siphoning customer funds from the now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange, and the civil trial of former President Donald Trump, who is accused by the New York attorney general of inflating the value of real estate on years...

Legislation and proposed regulations on cryptocurrency have the potential to answer some open questions about the taxation of digital assets, though not all of the possible changes may be welcomed by industry. A bill from Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) touches on a variety of crypto tax issues. It would provide a narrow definition of broker for tax reporting, require the marking of crypto assets to market for year-end accounting purposes, and closea tax loophole...

The IRS's new unit to tackle pass-through entity tax-law enforcement could take years to stand up fully and for businesses to feel its impact in the form of tougher audits. The push comes after years of concern among IRS officials that the agency lacked the expertise and resources to enforce laws around pass-through entities such as large partnerships, sparking fears some companies were manipulating the rules to pay less than they owed. But setting up and staffing up the new unit won't be...

State taxpayers have been sitting on a mountain of cryptocurrency assets for nearly a decade. According to one estimate, by the tax software and compliance firm Revenue Solutions Inc., 4.7 million California residents have stockpiled crypto assets valued at $56.2 billion, while 2.3 million New Yorkers are hoarding $27.7 billion in crypto. Are any of them paying capital gains taxes on the accumulated wealth tied up in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether and other digital tokens? And what about those...

Overhauling how the IRS audits low-income taxpayers is a critical step toward more fair audits, many in the industry acknowledged following the agency's announcement earlier this month. The IRS promised that it would "substantially" reduce audits on refundable tax credits that benefit low-income taxpayers, such as the earned income tax credit. That change follows a study released in January that found Black taxpayers claiming the EITC were audited at higher rates than non-Black taxpayers...

The new CEO of Deloitte's tax practice is grappling with many of the same challenges as the Big Four firm's clients: rapid shifts in how tax practitioners work thanks to artificial intelligence, a shortage of skilled staff, and reforms that will impose a new global minimum tax. Companies are starting to get their arms around the new rules that will impose a 15% global minimum tax and whether they should tackle implementation in-house or seek outside help, said Carin Giuliante, chair and CEO...

Sports betting is in more states than ever, with new gamblers every day wagering in person and over the internet. And the new NFL season is expected to drive up tax revenue even more in the 30 states—plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.—that have legalized sports betting since a 2018 US Supreme Court ruling overturning a federal ban. States collected an estimated $3.62 billion in direct gaming taxes generated in the second quarter, a 9.6% increase over the second quarter of 2022, according...

Congress' tax writers return to Capitol Hill with several priorities that remain unaddressed, as September shapes up to be a busy month with tax policy firmly in the mix. On the second part of a two-part podcast series looking at Congress as it returns from its August recess, we discuss the status of House Republicans' tax package and what would have to happen to get a bipartisan pact extending business tax breaks and enhancing the child tax credit. We also talk about GOP lawmakers' trip to...

A year ago, the tax world was pleasantly surprised when Congress granted the chronically underfunded IRS an $80 billion windfall in the Inflation Reduction Act. Now that surprise is turning into dismay among some as Congress starts to claw back that money bit by bit. President Joe Biden agreed to reallocate about a quarter of that funding as a part of this spring's debt ceiling deal. And now Republican appropriators on Capitol Hill are proposing to take away even more of the money. On the...

Artificial intelligence has been helping companies with their taxes for a while—and now it’s on to the next stage. Companies have been using AI to automate and speed up the grunt work involved in their tax filings and tax compliance for some time. With the recent advance into “generative” AI—the type that can generate new content after being "trained" on mountains of data—the technology is being democratized, and put into the hands of tax professionals more broadly. It’s becoming almost like...

July was a big month for the OECD, marking its release of a tranche of documents detailing progress on the global tax deal agreed to by more than 130 countries in 2021. The agreement includes reallocation of the residual profits of large multinational companies to market jurisdictions, known as Pillar One, and a 15% global minimum tax, known as Pillar Two. On this week’s episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax reporter Lauren Vella speaks with Manal Corwin, director of the OECD's Center for Tax...

Demand from clean energy and corporate clients looking to secure their share of credits from the tax-and-climate law is helping boost tax and law firms' footprints. The Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act offers tax incentives to accelerate the US's transition into renewable energy. The tax credits from the law give companies and investors stability for at least the next 10 years. "It really put a stamp of approval on these transaction structures and the interest of the...

The IRS rocked the name, image, and likeness industry after it released a memo saying that many organizations that fund college athletes won't be tax-exempt. The NCAA allows for college athletes and recruits to be compensated for the use of their name, image, and likeness—also known as NIL. NIL collectives were formed, often separate from the university, as a way to help fund and facilitate deals for athletes. Many of these collectives found creative ways, including vying for tax-exempt...

Governments landed agreement on some of the global tax deal's biggest open issues earlier this month. But major political questions remain. The issues will play out over the coming years in the US and around the world, said Bob Stack, who was the Treasury Department's OECD tax negotiator under the Obama administration and is now a managing director at Deloitte. In a conversation with Bloomberg Tax's Isabel Gottlieb, Stack talked about the recent agreement by the negotiating governments that...

The US Senate passed a long-stalled tax treaty with Chile last month, overcoming a dispute between Republicans and the Treasury Department over treatment of foreign tax credits. Business groups had been pushing for the measure to strengthen economic ties with the South American country and to allow companies to avoid double taxation. Chile is one of the biggest producers of lithium, a key element in batteries and other technology. On this week’s episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax reporter...

Unverified claims that the IRS plans to hire a horde of weapon-carrying agents are putting agency employees at risk, said Tony Reardon, longtime leader of the National Treasury Employees Union. "It places them squarely in danger," Reardon said, referring to charges from Republican politicians that thousands of armed agents would soon be probing Americans’ finances as a result of tax-and-climate law funds. Reardon, who's worked at NTEU for more than three decades and was first elected national...

The IRS has sounded the alarm multiple times over the past year about widespread scams associated with the employee retention credit—a pandemic-era tax incentive meant to encourage businesses to retain their employees during the worst of the Covid-19 crisis. Still, advertisements by third-party bad actors promoting the credit persisted, and faulty employee retention credit claims became so prevalent that in March, the IRS put the employee retention credit on its "Dirty Dozen" list of...

Small family vineyards throughout France face an uncertain future as the cost to transfer estates within a family climb under a complicated system of inheritance taxation and rising property values from sales to foreign or institutional investors. The costs can be so great that some can’t pay the inheritance tax without running up long-term debt or selling off a portion of their estate. French lawmakers are considering ways to help reduce the tax burden for family vineyards, which number just...

Most of the banks that failed or came close to it this spring had one thing in common: They had recently received a clean bill of health from their auditor, KPMG. This development has caused major problems for the Big Four auditing firm and has shareholders, regulators, and even lawmakers asking KPMG tough questions. On this week's episode of our podcast, Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax reporter Amanda Iacone talks about her reporting into KPMG's troubles and why this newest accounting scandal,...

The OECD's global tax deal is approaching a milestone: The organization expects to see the release this summer of major remaining pieces of the agreement that have been under negotiation. But throughout the process, many developing countries have felt their concerns weren't sufficiently addressed, said Marlene Nembhard-Parker, a senior tax official in Jamaica who is also co-chair of the Inclusive Framework of 143 countries working on the global tax agreement. Meanwhile, the United Nations...

Minnesota lawmakers just finished a historic legislative session that achieved something rarely seen in the state tax arena—a budget featuring both the biggest tax cut and the biggest tax hike in state history. The resulting tax overhaul measure includes $3 billion in tax relief from one-time refunds, tax credits, and a tax waiver on most Social Security income. But it also raises $1 billion through a tax on the earnings of foreign subsidiaries of multinational corporations and a new levy on...

What does it mean to be a good tax leader, as an in-house tax professional or as a tax adviser who wants to make the tax functions of your clients better? How do you build a great team? Bloomberg Tax Insights editor Rebecca Baker sat down with Jared Dunkin, the vice president of tax and senior tax counsel at FTI Consulting, and Dunkin's mentor and former boss, Todd Davis, the executive vice president and senior tax counsel for Warner Bros. Discovery, to find some answers to these...

Note: This episode originally aired May 19, 2022. Automation tools increasingly used by seasoned tax professionals are helping to take some of the pain and manual labor out of routine compliance work. That futuristic tech goes beyond robotics process automation and can link together the many programs and platforms that accountants rely on everyday. Those building blocks can automate every step in the tax process from onboarding clients to tax return delivery, according to John McGowan, the...

Puerto Rico lawmakers say a tax plan backed by Gov. Pedro Pierluisi still falls short of being the long-sought tax overhaul the island desperately needs. After years of modifications, Puerto Rico still has one of the most complex tax systems in the US, with over 400 tax breaks, deductions, credits, and exemptions. The Democratic governor presented a proposal earlier this year that would lower income taxes for both individuals and corporations and simplify the US territory's tax code. The...