Tag: Internal Revenue Service

Biden Targets Private Jets in Hunt for Tax Revenue

The Biden administration is looking to the skies for government revenue, scrutinizing corporate jets as it tries to get big companies to pay more in taxes and to crack down on rich tax evaders. From Taylor Swift to Fortune 500 chief executives, private air travel has for years been portrayed to exemplify lavishness and excess, […]

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How Trump’s Justice Dept. Derailed an Investigation of a Major Company

In December 2018, a team of federal law enforcement agents flew to Amsterdam to interview a witness in a yearslong criminal investigation into Caterpillar, which had avoided billions of dollars of income taxes by shifting profits to a Swiss subsidiary. A few hours before the interview was set to begin, the agents were startled to […]

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The IRS Is Starting to Nail Millionaire Tax Cheats

It’s always mystified me why Republicans think defunding the Internal Revenue Service is a political winner. Granted, voters are terrified of the IRS, but to presume that means we don’t want the IRS to collect taxes from the rich—the sole cohort that isn’t terrified of the IRS—is just wrong. According to a Navigator Research poll […]

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How Joe Biden Made the IRS Great Again

It’s always mystified me why Republicans think defunding the Internal Revenue Service is a political winner. Granted, voters are terrified of the IRS, but to presume that means we don’t want the IRS to collect taxes from the rich—the sole cohort that isn’t terrified of the IRS—is just wrong. According to a Navigator Research poll […]

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The I.R.S.’s Taxpayer Experience Officer Says Open Your Mail Already

The Internal Revenue Service is on a charm offensive, as long as you don’t earn too much money. After a multiyear pandemic pause, the agency is rebooting its collection efforts, hammering home its intent to chase down high earners who owe the most. On Thursday, the I.R.S. said it was sending letters to over 25,000 […]

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What You Need to Know for the 2024 Tax Season

Filing your tax return serves as an annual reminder of just how tediously complex the American tax code is — and this year is no exception. It’s not as messy as the pandemic years, but there are plenty of new provisions taking effect, and some changes could potentially land midseason. Procrastination may cost you: Interest […]

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A Tax Sunset Will Change What You Owe the I.R.S.

Navigating the byzantine U.S. tax rules and completing your return may be enough of a headache. But you can count on fresh tax stress coming from Washington not far down the road. On Dec. 31, 2025, critical parts of the 2017 federal tax law are scheduled to expire. After that sunset, they would revert to […]

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The Trump-Allied Conservative Partnership Institute Rises in Washington

In the lobby of the grand Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Fla., where a sprawling new force in Washington’s right-wing ecosystem, the Conservative Partnership Institute, was holding its winter conference, the former Trump legal adviser Cleta Mitchell was exultant. “Did you hear the ‘War Room’ today? Bannon was on fire!” she said to a friend. […]

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IRS Commissioner Warns Budget Cuts Would Add to Deficit

The head of the Internal Revenue Service warned on Thursday that proposed cuts to his agency’s budget would ultimately cost the federal government more money and pushed back against accusations that he had been disregarding laws for political purposes. The comments by the I.R.S. commissioner, Daniel Werfel, came in testimony before the House Ways and […]

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I.R.S. Commissioner Aims to Show Progress Amid Threats of Budget Cuts

At his senate confirmation last February, Daniel Werfel told lawmakers that if given the job of Internal Revenue Service commissioner he would work to increase “public trust” in the beleaguered agency and use the $80 billion that Congress had granted it to build a “more modern and high performing” organization. A year later, Mr. Werfel […]

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There’s a Tax Season Villain, and It’s Not the I.R.S.

It’s the most miserable time of the year: tax season. Americans are about to spend millions of hours and billions of dollars filing their federal income taxes, and they are pretty sure they know who is responsible for their pain: The misanthropes at the Internal Revenue Service. But we’re here to convince you that the […]

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Effort to Revamp I.R.S. Struggles Despite Multibillion-Dollar Infusion

A multibillion-dollar federal effort to modernize the Internal Revenue Service has not yet solved the agency’s struggles to answer customers’ calls, ameliorate identity theft or process amended tax returns, the agency’s watchdog wrote on Wednesday in a report to Congress. The annual report by the Office of the National Taxpayer Advocate comes as the agency […]

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I.R.S. to Begin Trial of Its Own Free Tax-Filing System

The Internal Revenue Service is rolling out a free option for filing federal tax returns this year to some residents of a dozen states. Last month, the agency published details of its plan to test an in-house filing system, in which taxpayers submit their federal tax returns directly to the agency online at no cost. […]

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I Spent New Year’s Eve Trying to Do the FAFSA. It Didn’t Go Well.

Since 2020, when Congress ordered up simplification of the federal financial aid system, the U.S. Department of Education has faced the complex task of actually making the changes to the ever-important formula for determining who gets what. Grants and loans hinge on the inputs and outputs of the dreaded FAFSA form, which is normally available […]

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The Best Teams That Money Could Buy

In late 2021, the once-mighty Texas Longhorns had just finished a 5-7 football season, losing six straight games for the first time since 1956. “We need bigger humans,” said Steve Sarkisian, the team’s coach. That off-season, Texas found a new — or at least, newly legal — way to recruit them: cash. A new tax-exempt […]

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QAnon Supporter Pours Cash Into a Legal-Defense Fund for Trump Allies

A supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory whom the Trump campaign distanced itself from in 2020. A real-estate developer and Trump megadonor. A funeral home company. Those were among the top contributors to a legal-defense fund established by allies of Donald J. Trump to help pay the mounting legal bills of people connected to the […]

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U.S. Moves to Crack Down on Money Behind Fentanyl Trade

The Biden administration said on Monday that it was creating a “counter-fentanyl strike force” within the Treasury Department to combat trafficking of the drug into the United States by more aggressively scrutinizing the finances of suspected narcotics dealers. The Treasury’s office of terrorism and financial intelligence and the criminal investigation unit of the Internal Revenue […]

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Israel, the I.R.S. and the Big Grift

Historians of propaganda are familiar with the concept of the Big Lie, a claim so extreme that many people end up accepting it because they can’t believe that authority figures would make up something so at odds with reality. It often seems to me that we need a term to describe a somewhat similar phenomenon […]

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House Set to Pass Aid Bill for Israel, Clashing With Biden and Senate

The measure made for a tricky vote for many pro-Israel Democrats, who were eager to support the Jewish state at a time of crisis but reluctant to embrace a bill that omits help for Ukraine and humanitarian aid and takes aim at their domestic policy priorities. Leading Democrats including Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, […]

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House Speaker Mike Johnson Is Not a Serious Person

It didn’t take long for the new House speaker, Mike Johnson, to demonstrate to the world that he will not be a serious partner for American allies or for those who still believe that governing is not a petty little game. On Monday, only five days after being elevated to one of the most important […]

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How Rich Donors and Loose Rules Are Transforming College Sports

The key to recruiting top college football players these days is not just a lavish training facility or a storied coach. It is ensuring the chance for them to hook up with a new type of operation that can pay them eye-popping sums, collected from wealthy boosters who can often write off the donations, for […]

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Feds Raid iHeartMedia Offices After DJ Envy Business Associate Gets Arrested

Photo: Paras Griffin (Getty Images) On Wednesday, it was announced by the United States Attorney’s Office that Cesar Pina had been arrested for the role he allegedly played in a multimillion dollar real-estate fraud scheme. He was charged by complaint with one count of wire fraud. Google’s Global Chief DEI Officer On The Importance Racial […]

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Mike Lindell’s Lawyers Say He Owes ‘Millions’ in Fees

For nearly three years, the pillow entrepreneur Mike Lindell has been one of the leading financial supporters of the election denial movement, a tireless promoter of false claims that Donald J. Trump won the 2020 election and of efforts to change how Americans vote. But recent public records, as well as interviews with Mr. Lindell […]

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I.R.S. Contractor Charged With Leaking Tax Returns

A contractor for the Internal Revenue Service has been charged with leaking tax return information from a senior government official and wealthy taxpayers to two news organizations, according to an indictment unsealed in federal court in Washington on Friday. Charles Edward Littlejohn, who worked as a contractor for the tax agency from 2017 to 2021, […]

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Where Would a Government Shutdown Immediately Be Felt Most?

Washington braced for a government shutdown over the weekend as Congress remained mired in dysfunction on Friday. Federal agencies planned to send home hundreds of thousand workers, who would not be paid until the shutdown ended. Hundreds of thousands of others deemed essential, like air traffic controllers, would be ordered to work. They, too, would […]

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U.S. National Debt Tops $33 Trillion for First Time

America’s gross national debt exceeded $33 trillion for the first time on Monday, providing a stark reminder of the country’s shaky fiscal trajectory at a moment when Washington faces the prospect of a government shutdown this month amid another fight over federal spending. The Treasury Department noted the milestone in its daily report detailing the […]

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Hunter Biden Sues I.R.S., Saying Disclosures by Agents Violated His Privacy

Hunter Biden sued the Internal Revenue Service on Monday, saying that investigators for the agency violated his privacy rights by disclosing details to Congress and the public about his taxes and the investigation into his conduct. Mr. Biden, the president’s son, filed the suit days after the Justice Department indicted him on separate charges relating […]

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Witness Testimony Casts Doubt on Some Biden Impeachment Allegations

As Republicans plunge forward with an impeachment inquiry looking into a complex web of allegations against President Biden, his family and his administration, witnesses they have summoned for closed-door interviews in recent weeks have undercut or pushed back against some of their major claims. In testimony this month, three witnesses from the F.B.I. and the […]

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I.R.S. Freezes Pandemic-Era Tax Credit Amid Fraud Fears

The Internal Revenue Service said on Thursday that it is freezing a pandemic-era employer tax benefit that has been a magnet for fraud and has cost the federal government billions of dollars as the agency looks for ways to stop the program from being abused. The tax collector also said that it had referred thousands […]

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I.R.S. Deploys Artificial Intelligence to Target Rich Partnerships

The Internal Revenue Service has started using artificial intelligence to investigate tax evasion at multibillion-dollar partnerships as it looks for ways to better police hedge funds, private equity groups, real estate investors and large law firms. The announcement on Friday demonstrated how a more muscular I.R.S. is using some of the $80 billion allocated through […]

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