Employment-related identity fraud occurs when people use a name or Social Security number (SSN) other than their own to get a job. People may do this if they are not authorized to work in the United States or are trying to avoid child support payments, among other reasons. Victims may face Internal Revenue Service (IRS) enforcement actions based on wages earned by fraudsters. IRS identified more

The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Publications 590-A and 590-B serve as a general handbook for millions of taxpayers with individual retirement accounts (IRA). However, the two-part publication provides limited information for IRA owners with unconventional assets surrounding complex tax rules in four compliance areas: (1) barred investments, (2) prohibited transactions, (3) unrelated business

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has made considerable progress issuing guidance to taxpayers for Public Law 115-97—commonly known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA)—but has additional work remaining to issue all planned guidance, as shown in the figure. To improve efficiency of TCJA guidance development, IRS internally collaborated earlier and more frequently than during more rout

Taxpayers are required to report and pay taxes on income from virtual currency use, but the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has limited data on tax compliance for virtual currencies. Tax forms, including the information returns filed by third parties such as financial institutions, generally do not require filers to indicate whether the income or transactions they report involved virtual currency.

The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) online services for individual taxpayers primarily provide taxpayers one-way communication of key information derived from their tax return, such as when an anticipated refund should arrive, or allow taxpayers to pay money owed or make payment arrangements. IRS has done little research or reporting on the extent to which its online services are satisfying taxp

The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) latest tax gap estimate (2016) found that taxpayers voluntarily and timely paid about 81.7 percent of owed taxes for tax years 2008-2010, leaving an annual gross tax gap of $458 billion. IRS estimated a net tax gap—after late payments and enforcement actions—of $406 billion. GAO's work has found that three important factors contribute to the tax gap. (1) L

Federal agencies generally use one of four payroll shared service centers (SSCs) to process employee timesheets, assure withheld tax is paid, and send Form W-2 Wage and Tax Statement (W-2) data to the Social Security Administration (SSA) and state tax authorities. GAO found these SSCs generally sent this W-2 data to SSA and states in a timely manner for tax years 2015 and 2016. However, SSCs vari

The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) latest tax gap estimate found that taxpayers voluntarily and timely paid about 81.7 percent of the taxes they should have paid for tax years 2008-2010. As with past estimates, underreporting of individual income taxes accounted for the largest portion of the 2008-2010 tax gap. IRS believes the tax gap estimates are sufficiently reliable to provide a snapshot o

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) uses its National Research Program (NRP) to study tax compliance issues. These NRP studies generally rely on detailed examinations of a random sample of tax returns and use different practices (including tools and procedures) than IRS's routine operational examinations. IRS recently completed the examinations for an NRP study on employment tax returns filed from

Based on results of audits, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) views vessel operators to be substantially in compliance with requirements to report and pay the Inland Waterways Fuel Tax (fuel tax). IRS seeks to ensure compliance by auditing quarterly excise-tax returns filed by these operators, as well as identifying operators that failed to file (nonfilers). (1) Audits of filed returns: IRS data