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Attention Taxpayers: Your Chances of Getting Audited Have Fallen Significantly
KEY POINTS The IRS audited roughly 1 out of every 220 individual taxpayers last year. A decade ago, those odds were closer to 1 in 90. The drop in audits correlates to budget and personnel reductions at the tax agency. Wealthy Americans are much more likely to be audited than low- and middle-income taxpayers. As the adage goes, the only sure things in life are death and taxes. But tax audits are another thing entirely. A ...
Read MoreAudit Fees Keep Rising, Thanks to New Accounting Standards
Average audit fees increased 4.25 percent from 2017 to 2018, going from an average of $2,220,251 in 2017 to $2,314,703 in 2018, mainly driven by new standards from the Financial Accounting Standards Board, according to a new report. The report, from the Financial Education & Research Foundation, an affiliate of Financial Executives International, found that more public companies are seeing an increase in the volume of work needed ...
Read MoreThe Best Skills to Have on Your Resume
Writing a good resume is a tricky balancing act. You want to impress recruiters by highlighting your skills and experiences, but you don't want to overwhelm them with too much information either. The key to striking the right balance and making your resume stand out is to include skills that are tailored to the position you're applying for. "A resume is a foot in the door," Vicki Salemi, a career expert at Monster, told CNN Business. A ...
Read MoreIRS Issues 2020 Standard Mileage Rates
The optional standard mileage rates for business use of a vehicle will decrease slightly in 2020 after increasing significantly in 2019, the IRS announced on Tuesday (Notice 2020-05). For business use of a car, van, pickup truck, or panel truck, the rate for 2020 will be 57.5 cents per mile in 2020, down from 58 cents per mile last year after increasing from 54.5 cents per mile in 2018. Taxpayers can use the optional standard mileage rates to ...
Read MoreThe Business Meal Expense Deduction After the TCJA
Some taxpayers have wondered whether client-related business meal expenses remain deductible after the law known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), P.L. 115-97, which generally repealed the deduction for entertainment expenses.One reading of current law is that because business meals are a form of entertainment, they are no longer deductible. Notably, the Joint Committee on Taxation in its Bluebook for the TCJA indicated that business meals ...
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