Issue Number: 2017-3
Inside This Issue
1. Participate in Form W-2 Testing
2. YouTube: Choose a Tax Preparer Wisely
3. Protect Your Clients, Protect Yourself
4. Technical Guidance
1. Participate in Form W-2 Testing
The IRS and payroll firms are adding a “verification code” this filing season to 50 million Forms W-2. This is part of a test to fight fraud and protect businesses and taxpayers from identity theft. As a tax preparer, you can help by looking for the code and entering the 16 digits when prompted. This is for electronic returns only. Learn more.
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2. YouTube: Choose a Tax Preparer Wisely
The IRS has a YouTube video, ”Choose a Tax Preparer Wisely,” that tax practitioners can share with prospective clients.
Watch this and other videos on the IRS’s YouTube Channel.
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3. Protect Your Clients, Protect Yourself
Tax practitioners who missed the IRS webinar, “Protect your Clients, Protect Yourself from Data Theft,” can now view it anytime on demand. In the broadcast, IRS and private sector experts discuss client data safeguards, legal requirements and best practices involving the handling of taxpayer data and tips for responding to a loss of taxpayer data.
Visit the Protect Your Clients, Protect Yourself page on IRS.gov for more information on identity theft scams targeting the tax professional community. The page includes links to publications such as Safeguarding Taxpayer Data, security alerts and educational videos.
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4. Technical Guidance
Revenue Procedure 2017-22 provides a safe harbor under section 118(a) of the Code for certain amounts received by corporate taxpayers under certain Department of Transportation programs. Rev. Proc. 2010-46 is clarified.
Revenue Ruling 2017-03 updates, for certain insurance contracts issued in 2016 and 2017, the prevailing state assumed interest rates that life insurance companies need in order to compute their life insurance reserves for federal tax purposes.
Revenue Ruling 2017-04 provides various prescribed rates for federal income tax purposes including the applicable federal interest rates, the adjusted applicable federal interest rates, the adjusted federal long-term rate, the adjusted federal long-term tax-exempt rate. These rates are determined as prescribed by section 1274.
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