IRS to Keep Closer Eye on Your Debit and Credit Card Purchases

Be careful what you buy! The Internal Revenue Service will be intensifying its monitoring of credit and debit card expensive in order to more easily discover inconsistencies on income claimed on tax returns.

First, a little bit of background courtesy of Accounting Today:

“A 2008 law required that debt and credit card payments be tracked by banks and third-party payment settlement organizations and reported to the IRS,” the site explains. “The agency was then supposed to match the information with the income that taxpayers report on their returns as part of an ongoing effort to improve tax compliance. The Treasury Department estimated the new information reporting requirement would bring in an extra $10 billion a year in tax revenue.”

This week, though, Accounting Today states a government report determined that the IRS should enhance the way it oversees merchant card reporting as mandated by the guidelines in the 2008 law, known as the Housing and Economic Recovery Act. Click here to read the full article and for more details on the report’s findings.

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