Anthony Sykes & Company

I think a bad decision has been made by the Internal Revenue Service but I think we tax professionals may have given them the wrong signal to make it.  What I am writing about is two of the best applications in the e-services for tax professionals that IRS has. E-services which allows you to get information almost 24 hours 7 days a week online will on August 11, 2013 discontinue the Disclosure Authorization (power of attorney) and Electronic Account Resolution (transcripts).  IRS says it is due to low usage.  Fewer than 10 percent of all the power of attorney applications go through e-services and less than 3 percent for transcript applications. So what does this mean to us tax professionals and our clients the taxpayers?  Maybe nothing since we are not apparently taking advantage of the technology.  However IRS has shorten its hours of telephone operations and reduce the staff of its correspondence operations.  So that means there will be more tax profes...

This past Memorial weekend was the beginning of something different.  It is the honoring of our veterans, it is the unofficial start of summer, it is a four day weekend. What was different was the Internal Revenue Service was closed Friday May 24, 2013 the start of the weekend.  That's right the entire IRS was closed for budget cuts.  They were not paid for that Friday because it was an unpaid furlough day and it is the first of several this summer.   The Internal Revenue Service brings in 93% of the revenue for the government and they have also been given the task of overseeing the new healthcare tax law.  Enforcement is up, there are more audits this year than last and yet more money is needed so there will be more audits. If you have not started your tax planning for 2013's taxes you should start now.  No one knows if the tax laws will change however by planning you can develop options.  At the start of 2014 if you did not plan you may not ha...