The IRS sent letters to more than 10,000 cryptocurrency holders last week, educating them about their income tax obligations associated with cryptocurrency transactions. The IRS also included information in that correspondence about applicable penalties for taxpayers who fail to report income and pay crypto taxes. The agency sent three letters to taxpayers: Letter 6173 https://www.irs.gov/pub/notices/letter_6173.pdf […]
At the Nationwide Tax Forums in Chicago last week, the IRS communicated details about the first wave of backup withholding penalty notices that payers should expect to receive in September and October. These new penalty notices are related to the enforcement campaign that kicked off from the IRS Cincinnati office in July. Background – Backup […]
Are unclaimed gift cards reportable as unclaimed property? It all depends. A recent ruling favoring the state of Delaware against an online retailer brought escheatment of unclaimed gift cards into the spotlight. Unclaimed property is escheated to the state of the property owner’s last known address, but challenges arise with gift cards due to lack […]
As businesses prepare to file their first VAT returns under Making Tax Digital (MTD), many will already be fully compliant with the requirement to retain digital links, whilst others will be taking advantage of the ‘soft landing’ period provided by the UK tax authority, HMRC, to get fully compliant. So, what exactly are the digital […]
On July 25th, Chuck Maniace, vice president of regulatory analysis and design at Sovos, hosted a replay of the “South Dakota v. Wayfair One Year Later” webinar on regulatory updates since the groundbreaking decision last June. Thanks to all those who participated, we received an additional wide range of thought-provoking questions. Our regulatory team compiled […]
Many people hear about the exemptions that states allow for unclaimed property reporting, and they get very excited. Free money, right? What could go wrong? I will share what I know about exemptions and let you decide. Let’s start with a simple kind of exemption. Some states exempt reporting of gift cards or gift […]
In a monumental moment for tax reporting professionals, the IRS has released a draft of Form 1099-NEC, the form that will eventually replace Form 1099-MISC box 7 for reporting nonemployee compensation and box 9 for reporting direct sales of $5,000 or more. The NEC should alleviate confusion that resulted after the passage of the PATH […]
Despite IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig’s promise of “within the next 30 days” more than 30 days ago to Congress regarding the release of forthcoming cryptocurrency tax guidance, we have not seen anything materialize. As we mentioned previously, the ongoing confusion related to tax reporting obligations continues to plague payers such as crypto or digital currency […]
When thinking about the aim of GDPR, one of the first things that comes to mind is the set of rules, obligations, and restrictions on the processing of personal data. When in fact, as the full title of GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation – and its recitals explain, the subject matter and purpose of […]
On 7 July, Greece began voting to elect a new government. The disposed governing left party has been dealt with a hefty blow having been in power since 2015. It was hoped they would introduce less severe politics which many claim they have not only failed to do but, in fact, they actually introduced stricter […]
At last, the IRS is allowing payers to truncate, or effectively mask, tax identification numbers (TINs) on Forms W-2 sent to payees. The decision comes after years of concern from companies and taxpayers about the risk of exposing TINs, or Social Security Numbers in the case of individual payees, in W-2 distributions. The new policy […]
Tax legislation is sometimes structured, or worded, ambiguously. This leaves scope for a number of different interpretations for the treatment of tax on insurance policies, some leading to a lower tax liability than others. This can often be seen when different insurance premium tax (IPT) rates apply to specific sub-classes of the same business or […]
From 1 July 2019, companies will benefit from an extension in the time frame from when an invoice must be issued. Businesses can now wait for as long as 12 days to issue instant invoices after performing a transaction in Italy. The new interval is a result of the changes introduced by the Italian Parliament […]
Thank you all who joined our webinar on June 27, “South Dakota v. Wayfair One Year Later – Sales Tax Retrospective and Look Ahead,” and submitted the following questions during the Q&A portion. They really put our regulatory analysis team to the test, and we hope you find the responses valuable as you prepare for […]
The European Union has been fighting against VAT fraud for many years. The so-called ‘carrousel fraud’ is costing the EU approximately EUR 50 billion per year. This was illustrated once again in a recent Europe-wide investigation, called ‘Grand Theft Europe’, carried out by 63 journalists from 30 countries, co-ordinated by German news outlet Correctiv. The […]
Supreme Court Rules Against Tennessee’s Discriminatory Residency Requirements After months of waiting by the beverage alcohol industry, the United States Supreme Court published its ruling in Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Ass’n v. Thomas on June 26, 2019. The 7-2 opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, clearly and definitively struck down a rule in Tennessee […]
The IRS has released a draft version of the new 2020 Form W-4, Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate. It represents the most sweeping changes to this form since the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943 was passed, requiring employers to withhold taxes from employee payroll and remit them to the IRS on their behalf. The form […]
Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) – the UK Government department responsible for the collection of taxes – is undertaking a call for evidence to understand how the administration and collection of Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) can be modernised and how it can address emerging practices that may lead to unfair tax outcomes. The aim […]