Tax information reporting is one of many topics on which Tax Analysts provides news, analysis, and commentary. IRS publications and other guidance available through Tax Analysts cover this broad and expanding compliance area, which affects almost all businesses and individuals.
For example, any person (an entity or individual) engaged in a trade or business must provide the Service data about “reportable transactions,” often on a version of IRS Form 1099. The federal government uses that information to verify what taxpayers have voluntarily disclosed on their income tax returns. This includes wages, employment tax withholdings, payments to independent contractors, payments to nonresident aliens, interest payments, shareholder dividends, and distributions from IRAs and other retirement plans.
Most states have parallel disclosure rules, and there are reporting obligations for international data under offshore enforcement initiatives, all of which are covered in Tax Analysts materials. This includes Treasury regulations and notices for foreign financial institutions under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) (IRC sections 1471, 1472, 1473, 1474), and the requirement that some individuals file a foreign bank account report (FBAR) and/or a Form 8938 reporting interests in specified foreign financial assets (IRC section 6038D).
Other recent laws have generated new information reporting requirements, as detailed in Tax Analysts news and commentary. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), for example, requires that employers report information regarding employee healthcare coverage (IRC section 6055). And beginning in 2011, legislation requires securities basis reporting and of the reporting of income in some credit card and debit card transactions (IRC section 6050W).
Tax Notes Federal and Tax Notes Today Federal subscribers have free access to James M. Peaslee and David Z. Nirenberg, Federal Income Taxation of Securitization Transactions and Related Topics (Fifth Edition). Chapter 14 discusses tax information reporting for different types of investment securities and domestic and foreign entities, and reporting of foreign accounts and foreign bank accounts. Chapter 17 discusses reportable transactions.
