The IRS has appealed the decision in Kwong, 179 Fed. Cl. 382 (2025), in which the Court of Federal Claims held that the filing deadline for refund claims for penalties and interest was automatically extended by Sec. 7508A(d) due to the COVID-19 disaster declaration. The national taxpayer advocate said the ruling may allow some taxpayers to claim tax refunds for the years 2019 through 2022, but she emphasized that the law remains unsettled. The notice of appeal in Kwong, which did not include a brief outlining the IRS’s position, was filed this month in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. [more]

The IRS stopped $7 billion in fraudulent refunds in calendar years 2024 and 2025, and it could prevent more fraud if it had earlier access to key information returns, according to an audit report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). In the report dated May 13, TIGTA said the IRS selected about 7.5 million individual tax returns through its identity theft filters during the two-year period. Those filters, which screen returns before refunds are issued, use characteristics of known and emerging fraud schemes to flag suspicious filings. [more]

Last week at Summit, I had several conversations that stuck with me. Not because the questions were unusual, but because of how easy they were to misunderstand and how much trouble that misunderstanding can create downstream. One conversation involved an attorney working through a plan for a blended family. The goal, as it so often is in these situations, was to “treat everyone equally.” It sounds simple and well-intentioned, but it can produce disastrous consequences. Clients tend to hold onto that idea with remarkable firmness, even when the proposed plan will almost certainly not produce the result they intend. [more]

The Trump administration launched an app for managing child investment accounts Thursday, according to Treasury Department officials, which will start being seeded with $1,000 from the federal government July 4. Nearly 6 million children have been signed up for the accounts, officially dubbed “Trump accounts,” which were created through the Republican tax-and-spending law last summer. The program “is the most important government benefit for young people since the GI Bill,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday. “It will place the American Dream into the palms of the hands of parents and children.”  [more]