IRS eases filing of protective COVID refund claims by July 10
The IRS provided an electronic way to file a protective claim for a possible tax refund related to the COVID-19 pandemic ahead of a July 10 deadline.

IRS rules label CRATs listed transactions
Final regulations identify charitable remainder annuity trusts as "listed transactions," akin to tax shelters that need to be disclosed to avoid penalties.

IRS streamlines penalty relief, replacing First Time Abate
A new Automatic Exemption from Penalty process aims to provide relief for taxpayers with a history of usually filing and paying their taxes on time.

Tracking the financial impact of property improvements
Judgment about property improvements used to be defined by personal biases and loose, anecdotal evidence. Financial tracking is changing that.

Ascend acquires Kreischer Miller
The Top 25 Firm acquired Mid-Atlantic Regional Leader Kreischer Miller in Horsham, Pennsylvania.

Democratic senators probe Trump's IRS immunity deal
The protection against probes of past tax filings was part of a settlement in which Trump agreed to drop a $10 billion lawsuit he filed against the IRS.

Should accountants vibe-code their own software?
AI is shifting the economics of build-versus-buy as more firms turn to apps created not by software vendors but by code generators such as Claude, Replit, or Cursor.

The billable hour is a trust contract. AI just broke the terms
The billable hour was always just a stand-in for something harder to measure. AI has finally made that obvious.

Time saved by AI partially canceled out by time spent checking AI
The time saved by using AI is being eroded by the time spent verifying its outputs.

In the blogs: The royal treatment
Jordan's Revenge; generative AI; faulty assumptions; and other highlights from our favorite tax bloggers.