A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel presided over by Frederic Block recently issued its opinion in Vasquez, et al. v. Jan-Pro Franchising International, Inc., finding that the "ABC test" for worker classification adopted last year in Dynamex Ops. W. Inc. v. Superior Court should apply retroactively to all wage-and-hour cases in California.
Dynamex to Apply Retroactively in California Wage and Hour Cases, Says Ninth Circuit
California Provides Urgent Relief to Out-of-State Retailers, Raises Wayfair Threshold to $500k
On April 25, 2019, the Governor of California approved Assembly Bill No. 147, which sets the economic nexus threshold at $500,000 in sales or deliveries to California, cumulative over 12 months. This will come as some relief to many out-of-state retailers affected by last year's U.S. Supreme Court case, South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., the case that overturned the long-standing principle set in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota requiring physical presence for a retailer to be subject to state sales and use taxes.
IRS Focus on Cybersecurity at Practitioner Education Seminars
The IRS is doing more than protecting taxpayer data and detecting cyber fraud. It is educating tax professionals on cybersecurity at its annual Nationwide Tax Forums. Certain education seminars at this year's Forums will focus on addressing "basic cyber hygiene" and how to manage and prevent cyber threats to businesses, as well as the foundations of information security programs. Forum dates across the country and registration details are available here.
IRS Plan to Modernize, Improve, and Protect
The IRS has established a plan to modernize its systems with an eye toward better service to taxpayers. Cybersecurity is a top priority for the IRS in 2019, as is protecting taxpayer data. The newly released plan outlines a six-year strategy to expand taxpayers' access to their own information and customer support options, to increase secure systems available for tax practitioners' use, and to streamline implementation of new tax provisions.
Foreign Assets and Entities Focus of New IRS Compliance Campaigns
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Large Business and International division (LB&I) recently announced three new compliance campaigns focused on offshore private banking, captive services providers, and information returns filed by individuals concerning foreign corporations (Forms 5471), with plans to first use audits and letters to address these compliance issues. According to its press release, the IRS has records that identify taxpayers with transactions or accounts at foreign private banks, which it will use to address compliance issues within that campaign.
IRS and Security Summit Making Progress against Tax-Related Identity Theft
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and its Security Summit partners recently announced the results from their last 3 years of fighting tax-related identity theft. The summit first met in 2015, and the first initiatives were enacted in 2016. Since 2015, the number of taxpayers reporting they were victims of identity theft has decreased 71 percent. The number of confirmed identity theft returns stopped by the IRS declined by 54 percent in the same period.
IRS Narrows Definition of "Responsible Party" for EIN Applications
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently announced that, starting May 13, 2019, only natural persons with a Social Security number or an individual taxpayer identification number may request an EIN as the "responsible party" on the application. Entities will no longer be able to use their own EINs to obtain additional EINs.
TIGTA Releases Interim Report on 2019 Filing Season
The Treasury Inspector General of Tax Administration (TIGTA) recently released its interim report on the 2019 federal tax filing season. As of March 1, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had received over 59 million tax returns and issued approximately $142 billion in refunds on over 46 million of those returns. A vast majority - 95 percent - of filers e-filed their returns this season.
Taxpayer First Act Seeks Structural Reform for IRS
The House Way and Mean Committee is working on a bill that would overhaul Internal Revenue Service (IRS) operations, appeals, and taxpayer services. The Taxpayer First Act faltered in the Senate Finance Committee last April, but a bipartisan group of lawmakers reintroduced the bill for consideration last month. A major focus is improving customer service, from codifying the IRS Free File program and expanding and improving services for low-income taxpayers to strengthening cybersecurity and identity protection. The bill also seeks to create an independent appeals process for IRS matters.
IRS Makes Panera Bread Foundation Give Up the Dough
Beginning in 2010, the Panera Bread Foundation, a non-profit related to the popular restaurant chain, piloted a limited experiment in the "gift economy," whereby customers could "pay it forward" or "pay-what-you-can" at select cafes. The experiment, unfortunately, failed due to lack of financial viability. In a double-hit, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) now claims the experimental cafes owe back taxes to 2012 on annual revenues exceeding $7.5 million.
