IRS & Enforcement
Audit triggers, enforcement actions, compliance requirements, reporting thresholds, IRS technology changes, and taxpayer rights.
Latest in IRS & Enforcement
The IRS pays 8% interest on any federal refund delayed past 45 days — the rate just reset for Q3 2026, and the agency owed billions to late filers
If your federal tax refund is late, the IRS is paying you 8% annual interest on every day it keeps your money past a 45-day...
Form 5498 quietly reports every IRA contribution to the IRS each May — it’s the form that proves your basis and stops the IRS from taxing you twice in retirement
Every spring, a one-page tax form lands in the mailboxes of IRA holders across the country weeks after they have already filed their returns. Most...
Scammers are filing tax returns under stolen Social Security numbers — but a free six-digit IRS PIN locks them out, and any taxpayer can request one
Last filing season, thousands of Americans discovered they had been robbed before they even knew anything was wrong. They sat down to e-file their federal...
Skip your required retirement withdrawal at 73 and the IRS can claw back 25% of the amount you missed — one of the harshest penalties in the tax code
A 73-year-old retiree sitting on $500,000 in a traditional IRA owes roughly $18,900 in required minimum distributions this year. If that money doesn’t leave the...
Student loan forgiveness is taxable again in 2026 — borrowers who finally get their debt erased could owe the IRS thousands on “income” they never actually received
Imagine making student loan payments for 20 years, watching your balance barely budge, and finally reaching the finish line where the federal government promises to...
The IRS’s new crypto tax form leaves out one number — and it could make the agency think you owe thousands more than you actually do
Say you bought $14,000 worth of Bitcoin, sold it for $15,000, and owed tax on the $1,000 profit. Simple enough. Now imagine the IRS received...
The IRS will phase out paper refund checks for tax year 2026 — anyone filing without direct deposit on file will wait six extra weeks for their money
The average federal tax refund last filing season topped $3,100. Starting with tax year 2026 returns, filed during the 2027 season, anyone who doesn’t have...
If you sold crypto in 2025, your broker will send a Form 1099-DA in January — the IRS gets a copy, and 125 AI models match every entry automatically
Sometime in February, a tax form you had never seen before likely showed up in your Coinbase, Kraken, or Gemini account. Form 1099-DA, the IRS’s...
The IRS deployed 125 AI models to flag tax returns this year, up from 54 two years ago — crypto now triggers automatic matching
This spring marks the first time cryptocurrency brokers are required to report your sales directly to the IRS. If you sold Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, or...
The IRS is phasing out paper refund checks under a new executive order — filers without direct deposit will need a bank account on file by next tax season
If you got your federal tax refund as a paper check last year, that’s almost certainly not going to happen again. Under Executive Order 14247,...
The IRS may owe you money from COVID-era penalties — but you have to mail a paper form by July 10 or lose it forever
Millions of Americans paid IRS penalties during the COVID-19 pandemic, wrote off the loss, and never looked back. That may have been a costly mistake....
The IRS may owe you money from COVID-era penalties — but you have to file a paper form by July 10 or lose it forever
Millions of Americans paid late-filing penalties, late-payment penalties, or interest charges to the IRS during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, an independent...
Tens of millions of taxpayers may qualify for IRS refunds from COVID-era penalties — the deadline to file Form 843 is July 10, and it can only be mailed on paper
A penalty of $500 here, $1,200 there. During the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the IRS kept its automated penalty machine running even as its...
The IRS may owe you money from COVID-era penalties — but you have to file a paper form by July 10 or lose it forever
Millions of Americans were hit with IRS penalties during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the federal government may owe them money back. But there is a...
The IRS is running 125 AI models to flag tax returns — up from 54 two years ago — and high-earner audits are climbing back toward pre-cut levels
If you earned seven figures last year and filed a clean return, you might still hear from the IRS. The agency is now running 125...
The IRS is running 125 AI models to flag tax returns in 2026 — up from 54 in 2024 — and high-earner audit rates are climbing back toward pre-2010 levels
If you reported more than $10 million in income on your most recent tax return, the IRS is screening it with tools that barely existed...
The IRS is running 125+ AI models to flag returns in 2026 — up from 54 two years ago — while Congress wants to cut the agency’s budget by another $1 billion
Somewhere inside the IRS, a machine-learning model is comparing the income you reported on your 2025 tax return against every W-2, 1099, and third-party record...
An attorney went viral on TikTok for refusing to pay her $8,800 tax bill as a political protest — millions watched, and the IRS hasn’t responded
Rachel Cohen filed her 2025 federal tax return. She calculated what she owed. Then she decided not to pay it. The Chicago attorney posted a...
House Republicans want to cut IRS funding by $1 billion next year — right after the IRS processed a record $202 billion in refunds
The IRS just finished delivering more than $202 billion in tax refunds through March 20, capping what the agency called one of its smoothest filing...
The IRS enforcement workforce is about to shrink below 30,000 — fewer than in Trump’s first term — even as AI audits expand
The IRS processed roughly 163 million individual tax returns in fiscal year 2024. By the end of 2026, the number of enforcement employees responsible for...