Developments and Trends in Tax Withholding and Reporting
As we have been discussing in recent blog posts, the Treasury Department released its Fiscal Year 2024 General Explanations of the Administration’s Revenue Proposals, commonly called the “Green Book,” on March 9, 2023. This year’s Green Book includes a proposal that both employers and employees are likely to embrace: an enhanced tax credit for employers that provide childcare.…
Continue Reading Administration Proposes Increased Childcare Tax Credit for Employers
On March 7, 2023, the IRS issued a renewed warning to employers considering an Employee Retention Credit (“ERC”) claim. While many businesses with legitimate ERC claims have already made them, a cadre of consulting firms have come forward to, in the words of the IRS, “push[] ineligible people to file” claims. …
Continue Reading IRS Repeats Cautions Regarding Aggressive Claims for Employee Retention Credit
On February 28, 2023, the Supreme Court decided Bittner v. United States—a rare Supreme Court foray into Financial Crimes Enforcement Network or FinCEN reporting of foreign bank and financial accounts under the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”). The BSA is codified under Title 31 (Money and Finance) of the United States Code rather than Title 26 (the Internal Revenue Code) so the section references in this post are to Title 31. At issue was how to calculate penalties for nonwillful violations of the BSA’s recordkeeping and reporting obligations for foreign transactions and accounts. By a narrow 5-4 majority, the Supreme Court held that the penalty for a nonwillful violation of the reporting requirements shall be assessed on a per-form basis rather than a per-account basis, a result favorable for those taxpayers with nonwillful failures.
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Continue Reading Supreme Court Limits Penalties for Nonwillful FBAR Failures in Bittner Decision
Last week, the IRS issued Notice 2023-11 providing relief procedures for foreign financial institutions (“FFIs”) in countries with Model 1 intergovernmental agreements (“IGAs”) that have failed to provide U.S. taxpayer identification numbers (“TINs”) for certain preexisting accounts. Preexisting accounts are defined in Model 1 IGAs as a financial account maintained by a reporting financial institution as of June 30, 2014. Those FFIs in eligible Model 1 IGA jurisdictions that comply with the procedures described in the notice will avoid being identified by the U.S. Competent Authority as being in significant non-compliance with the IGA. (A list of U.S. IGAs, including Model 1 IGAs, along with other useful information regarding the status of all IGAs may be found at the Treasury’s FATCA page.)…
This afternoon, in Announcement 2023-2, the IRS announced that brokers are not required to report additional information with respect to dispositions of digital assets until the IRS and Treasury issue final regulations under sections 6045 and 6045A. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (the “Act”) amended sections 6045 and 6045A to clarify and expand the rules regarding the reporting of information on digital assets by brokers. These provisions of the Act were intended to increase tax compliance through additional information reporting regarding transactions involving digital assets.…
Today, in Notice 2023-10, the IRS announced a delay in the new reduced reporting threshold for section 6050W applicable to third-party settlement organizations (TPSOs). Section 9674(a) of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 amended section 6050W(e) to provide that, for returns for calendar years beginning after December 31, 2021, a TPSO is required to report payments in settlement of third party network transactions with respect to any participating payee that exceed a minimum threshold of $600 in aggregate payments, regardless of the aggregate number of such transactions. Prior to the change, the threshold was $20,000 and 200 transactions. …
The Internal Revenue Service recently released an online tool to help U.S. withholding agents comply with withholding and reporting obligations on IRS Form 1042-S, Foreign Person’s U.S. Source Income Subject to Withholding. Forms 1042-S are issued by withholding agents to non-U.S. beneficial owners of U.S. source FDAP income under Chapter 3 and to non-U.S. payees who receive U.S. source withholdable payments under Chapter 4. Given the complexity of the Form 1042-S, this tool provides withholding agents with an opportunity to screen their draft Forms 1042-S for errors prior to filing. The Form 1042-S Data Integrity Tool performs a quality review of data before IRS submission at no cost to the user.
Continue Reading IRS Releases Form 1042-S Data Integrity Tool to Assist Withholding Agents in Complying With Withholding and Reporting Obligations
Nearly 18 months into the pandemic, the IRS continues to issue guidance on the employee retention credit, a credit that was adopted in March 2020 and has been addressed in a number of articles on the Tax Withholding & Reporting Blog, most recently on August 3, 2021.
The latest guidance takes the form of Notice 2021-49 and Revenue Procedure 2021-33, which together address a range of topics, including how employers should treat cash tips for purposes of determining the amount of qualified wages, whether the credit may be claimed with respect to the same wages for which the employer receives the Code Section 45B credit, how the related individual rules work for determining qualified wages, and whether employers are required to file amended tax returns if they claim the employee retention credit retroactively. The Service has also outlined a safe harbor that employers may apply to exclude from gross receipts the amount of the forgiveness of any PPP loans or the amount of shuttered venue operator grants or restaurant revitalization grants.
Continue Reading IRS Issues Additional Guidance on Employee Retention Credit
In February, a U.S. Tax Court opinion in Anikeev v. Commisioner addressed challenging issues regarding the IRS’s existing policy with respect to the taxation of credit card rewards and other rebates. The case involves Mr. and Mrs. Anikeev, each of whom held a Blue Cash American Express Card (“Blue Card”) during 2013 and 2014, on which they accumulated a substantial amount of reward dollars through the use of their cards. At issue in Anikeev is whether the reward dollars were taxable income to the Anikeevs. Basing its decision on longstanding IRS policy, the court determined that the overwhelming majority of the rewards were not taxable to the Anikeevs, although the decision does address how the Service could potentially reform its policy regarding credit card rewards to prevent the same result in the future.
Continue Reading Making a Point: Tax Court’s Anikeev Decision Challenges Longstanding IRS Policy on Credit Card Rewards
On March 11, 2021, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (the “ARPA”) into law. The ARPA includes clarifying language regarding the scope of Form 1099-K (Payment Card and Third Party Network Transactions) reporting for third party payment networks and a change to the de minimis reporting standard applicable to third party settlement organizations (“TPSOs”) effective for returns required to be filed for 2022.
Continue Reading American Rescue Plan Act Clarifies Scope of Form 1099-K Reporting and Reduces De Minimis Threshold
