Category: Audits and Enforcement

The IRS can freeze refunds on millions of returns each year through identity-verification holds that may delay payments for weeks or longer, leaving some legitimate filers waiting past the standard 21-day processing window. The agency’s Taxpayer Protection Program (TPP) flags some returns it considers suspicious, triggering letters that can halt refunds until the taxpayer verifies…

The Internal Revenue Service warned taxpayers about “ghost” tax return preparers in its 2025 Dirty Dozen list of tax scams, saying these paid preparers may lure filers with promises of inflated refunds, then disappear without signing the return or leaving traceable identification. The scheme shifts full legal liability onto the taxpayer while the preparer pockets…

The IRS enforces a set of overlapping deadlines that determine how far back it can review a tax return, assess additional tax, and pursue collection. Most taxpayers assume the agency has only three years to act, but specific exceptions can stretch that window to six years, ten years, or eliminate it entirely. With the IRS…

Millions of taxpayers who file early each year expecting a fast refund will hit a wall in 2026. Federal law requires the IRS to hold all refunds that include the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Additional Child Tax Credit until mid-February, and that freeze covers the entire refund amount, not just the credit portion….

Freshly published IRS data for the 2026 filing season shows average tax refunds running well below the levels President Trump promoted when he sold his signature tax overhaul to American families. The gap between the refund sizes Trump promised and what early filers are actually receiving has reignited debate over whether the 2017 tax cuts…

Millions of Americans earning money through payment apps and online marketplaces face a shifting set of IRS reporting rules that could trigger compliance letters if they fail to act. The Form 1099-K, which tracks payments processed through platforms like Venmo, PayPal, and Etsy, has been at the center of a years-long regulatory tug-of-war over how…

The U.S. tax code already contains tools designed to prevent adversarial nations from benefiting financially through American taxpayers, but gaps in enforcement and scope continue to draw criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The tension between maintaining a globally competitive tax system and ensuring that hostile regimes cannot exploit deductions or credits…

Massachusetts State Auditor Diana DiZoglio has turned a series of state government accountability fights into a direct confrontation with the Legislature, one that could reshape how taxpayers track public spending. Her office identified $12,322,688 in public benefit fraud in a single fiscal year and flagged serious contracting failures in the state’s emergency shelter system. When…

The wealthiest people in the United States, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and George Soros, have paid zero federal income taxes in certain years, despite holding fortunes that dwarf the lifetime earnings of most American families. The mechanism behind this outcome is not some shadowy offshore scheme but a structural feature of the U.S. tax…

The IRS is sharpening its tone for the 2025 filing season, and two tax credits are in the spotlight: the Fuel Tax Credit and the Employee Retention Credit. Both are real, technical tax breaks, but they have also drawn aggressive promoters and outright scams. The agency warns that taxpayers who chase easy money on these…