Free Republic

There will be no changes to individual information returns or withholding tables for the 2025 tax year while the IRS implements the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) in a phased manner, the agency said in an Aug. 7 statement.The IRS building in Washington on July 21, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch TimesInformation returns are documents that businesses must file with the IRS, reporting transactions such as wages paid to employees. The IRS’s withholding tables describe how much an employer must withhold from an employee’s paycheck for taxes, Social Security, and Medicare.The OBBB was signed into law by President Donald Trump...

Trump removed Billy Long from post months after agency said it couldn’t release information on some taxpayers The removal of the Internal Revenue Service commissioner Billy Long after just two months in the post came after the federal tax collection agency said it could not release some information on taxpayers suspected of being in the US illegally, it was reported on Saturday. The IRS and the White House had clashed over using tax data to help locate suspected undocumented immigrants soon before Long was dismissed by the administration, according to the Washington Post. Long’s dismissal came less than two months...

President Trump sent shockwaves throughout Washington, DC after making Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent the acting IRS Commissioner. Now, we may know why. As The Gateway Pundit reported, Trump removed Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Billy Long from the position and installed Bessent. Long had been in the job for less than two months. As a consolation, Long was awarded the U.S. Ambassadorship to Iceland, not exactly a plum position. But it was either Iceland or the unemployment line. The Washington Post reported Saturday that Long was booted from his position after he refused to hand over certain taxpayer data on suspected...

The change comes just two months into the former Republican congressman’s tenure leading the tax agency.President Trump is removing Billy Long from his job leading the Internal Revenue Service just two months after he was confirmed as commissioner, according to four people familiar with the matter. Mr. Long, a former Republican congressman and staunch ally of Mr. Trump, is expected to be nominated to an ambassadorship, the people said. It is unclear who will next lead the I.R.S., which has had six different people in charge this year. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will serve as acting commissioner until a permanent...

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Bill Long said the agency will end its Direct File program after a limited pilot and one full filing season. President Donald Trump’s massive spending and policy bill includes funding to research and “replace any direct e-file programs run by the Internal Revenue Service.” Already, the program is “gone,” Long said at a tax professional summit on July 28, Bloomberg Law reports. “You’ve heard of Direct File, that’s gone,” Long said. “Big beautiful Billy wiped that out. I don’t care about Direct File. I care about direct audit.” The agency has not confirmed the future of...

Federal agents descended upon a California home connected to the “TikTok Cult” pastor who was the subject of a recent Netflix documentary series Friday — as part of an investigation into sex trafficking and other criminal claims. Several people were detained after a Tujunga home partially owned by Pastor Robert Shinn was raided by agents from the FBI, IRS, US Postal Service and Department of Labor, the Los Angeles Times reported. Officials served warrants related to allegations of sex trafficking, money laundering, mail fraud, tax evasion and COVID-19-related fraud, according to the outlet. The identities of those detained were not...

WASHINGTON, July 9 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday welcomed the Internal Revenue Service's decision that houses of worship could endorse political candidates to their congregations without risking losing their status as tax-exempt nonprofits. "I love the fact that churches could endorse a political candidate," Trump told reporters at the White House. "If somebody of faith wants to endorse, I think it's something that I'd like to hear." In a court filing on Monday to resolve a lawsuit by two Texas churches and the National Religious Broadcasters, the IRS said traditional religious communications are exempt from a decades-old...

A new report from the head of the IRS’s Taxpayer Advocate Service shows that the agency has lost more than one-quarter of its workforce since President Donald Trump assumed office.The overhaul is consistent with the administration’s effort to slim down the federal government, but it raises questions about the agency’s readiness for the 2026 tax season.According to the June 25 report, the IRS workforce has dropped from 102,113 employees to 75,702 since January—a roughly 26 percent reduction. The majority of those departures came through voluntary exit programs rolled out by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a Trump administration initiative...

As the Trump administration ramps up its efforts to detain and deport undocumented immigrants across the country, it is increasingly relying on federal employees to take on new roles to supplement those enforcement efforts. Those efforts are spearheaded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement within the Homeland Security Department, but agencies within and outside DHS are soliciting employees to help ramp up the renewed crackdown. The initiative has led to raids at worksites, farms, nightclubs, residential areas and federal buildings where immigrants report for court hearings or check-ins. The efforts have led to widespread protests and, according to administration officials, increased...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The One, Big, Beautiful Bill fulfills President Trump’s promise to seniors and provides welcome tax relief after four years of inflation robbed their retirement under President Biden. Each senior will receive an additional bonus of $4,000 to the standard deduction, putting more money in the pocket of millions of low- and middle-income seniors.

This actually falls under the "you won't believe this" section, but I felt it was worth sharing.

An employee at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who was involved in targeting conservative groups during the Obama administration is now leading the same IRS division, according to a new memo from the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Robert Choi served as the director of the IRS’s Tax-Exempt Organizations Rulings and Agreements division in 2010, when the agency began applying heightened scrutiny to organizations associated with the Tea Party movement seeking tax-exempt status, the AAF found. Despite this history, Choi was reportedly recently promoted to acting commissioner of the Tax Exempt and Government...

Thomas Jefferson High School has been subjected to left-wing education policies and is uniquely situated to display how destructive those policies are.Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) in Fairfax County, Virginia, became something of a household name in recent years, with a challenge to an allegedly racially discriminatory admissions scheme nearly reaching the U.S. Supreme Court and the school essentially selling proprietary education information to the Chinese. Despite the high court refusing to take the slam-dunk affirmative action case, the school is now being investigated from multiple angles by the Trump administration.In the past two weeks, the...

In a surprise move, the Republican-led Senate quickly passed the "No Tax on Tips Act" on Tuesday, giving its official stamp of approval to an idea that has gained traction since President Donald Trump campaigned on it in 2024. The legislation would create a new tax deduction worth up to $25,000 for tips, limited to cash tips that that workers report to employers for withholding purposes on payroll taxes. The tax break is also restricted to employees who earn earn $160,000 or less in 2025, an amount that will rise with inflation in upcoming years. The bill now goes to...

Tax bods characterize it more as a brainstorming session, says Elon's unit wasn't involvedCongressional Democrats are again demanding answers from a federal agency over whether DOGE's latest tech makeover could put taxpayer data at risk. The latest please-explain-this-DOGE-activity letter letter [PDF] landed yesterday on the desk of the Internal Revenue Service's acting inspector general, Heather Hill. It is from Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and perennial DOGE gadfly. This time, Connolly is demanding answers about a 30-day "hackathon" reportedly launched last month by DOGE staffers embedded at the IRS, in...

The Trump administration scored a major victory on Monday after a federal judge ruled that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can share its database with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to help locate and identify alleged illegal migrants. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich sided with the Trump administration in a lawsuit brought by the immigrant-rights group Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, by declining to issue an injunction to block the two government agencies from partnering on illegal immigration. Friedrich ruled that the partnership, which allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials to submit names of illegal migrants to the IRS,...

A federal judge won’t block a controversial Trump administration initiative to share highly sensitive taxpayer information with federal immigration authorities in hopes of tracking down undocumented immigrants and quickly deporting them out of the country. District Judge Dabney Friedrich on Monday rejected arguments from several immigrant-rights groups, that claimed the data-sharing agreement between the Internal Revenue Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement violated taxpayer confidentiality laws. The decision is a victory for President Donald Trump and his immigration agenda. Trump administration officials argued that greater cooperation between the IRS and ICE will protect Americans by kicking out potentially dangerous immigrants...

Hunter Biden abruptly dropped his lawsuit Wednesday against two Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers who alleged a wide-ranging cover-up in the Department of Justice to stonewall the tax fraud investigation into him. The Biden scion had slapped a lawsuit against the two whistleblowers in 2023, alleging that they “targeted and sought to embarrass Mr. Biden via public statements to the media in which they and their representatives disclosed confidential information about a private citizen’s tax matters.” Without detailing a specific reason why, the scandal-scarred 55-year-old voluntarily moved to dismiss his lawsuit against Gary Shapley, who was an IRS supervisory special agent...

President Donald Trump said Sunday that his tariff policy will substantially reduce, even completely eliminate, income taxes for some American workers. “When Tariffs cut in, many people’s Income Taxes will be substantially reduced, maybe even completely eliminated,” Trump wrote in a 6:06 a.m. post on Truth Social. “Focus will be on people making less than $200,000 a year.” Trump continued, “Also, massive numbers of jobs are already being created, with new plants and factories currently being built or planned. It will be a BONANZA FOR AMERICA!!! THE EXTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE IS HAPPENING!!!

Why should the Internal Revenue Service have enough trained manpower, guns, and ammo to equip nine or ten infantry battalions? Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) has revealed that employees of the Internal Revenue Service owe about $50 million in back taxes. The problem extends far beyond the IRS: In Fiscal Year 2021, the IRS found that 149,000 federal employees owed about $1.5 billion in unpaid taxes. Let’s bear that in mind while looking at the amount of firepower the IRS can deploy. In 2020, they had 2,100 “special agents,” who carry firearms and are fully trained to use them. These are...