The federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) provided much-needed financial lifelines to many small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also proved to be prime targets for fraud. Fraud under these programs cost U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, and now the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and its Criminal Investigation division (IRS CI) are working to claw back as much of this money as possible.Read More

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently announced that it is continuing to target businesses that have claimed the Employee Retention Credit (ERC). The ERC was a limited-time credit offered to qualifying businesses under the CARES Act for the 2020 and 2021 tax years. According to an IRS News Release, the agency has identified widespread fraud related to the ERC, and, as a result, it is “actively auditing and conducting criminal investigations related to these false claims.”Read More

For many taxpayers, preparing their annual income tax returns involves reviewing what they did in prior years. While this can be a good way to streamline the process, it can also uncover evidence of past filing mistakes.Read More

For U.S. taxpayers who live and work abroad, the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE) provides an opportunity to exclude up to $112,000 of your foreign-earned income from your annual federal taxable income. However, strict eligibility criteria apply, and taxpayers who are eligible to claim the FEIE must still report their foreign-earned income on their federal returns.Read More

In 2020, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) signaled that it would amend the regulations under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) to require the inclusion of stand-alone cryptocurrency accounts on taxpayers’ FBARs. But, as of now, this still hasn’t happened.Read More