Practice management

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has named Mary Moore Hamrick as director of its newly established Office of External Relations.The public affairs and government relations offices will now be combined under the single communications department. To head those offices, the board also announced that two new deputy directors have joined the board. Colleen Brennan will head up public affairs activities, while Kent Bonham will oversee government relations.

Churches, charities and other tax-exempt organizations that paid the federal excise tax on long-distance or bundled telephone service qualify for this year’s one-time telephone excise tax refund, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

The Government Accountability Office wants to see better descriptions and more cost and expected performance information on the Internal Revenue Service’s new initiatives in the agency’s future budget submissions.The IRS’s budget request for 2008 includes a spending increase of almost 5 percent, to $11.6 billion, and the GAO noted that the agency’s budget proposes shifting a greater proportion of spending to enforcement, continuing a trend.

Embarrassingly for Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, one of the loudest proponents of reducing the tax gap, two mistakes he made in recent years on his own property taxes have recently come to light.A political ad sponsored by the Montana Republican State Central Committee has brought to light local property taxes in both Washington and Montana that tripped up Baucus, D-Mont.

CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business, announced that its 2007 User Conference for tax and accounting professionals will be held Nov. 4-7 at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center.

The Association for Accounting Marketing has released its 2006 Accounting Marketing/Sales Responsibility and Compensation Survey Results. The survey was very comprehensive, and shows an interesting snapshot of where many firms are with regard to marketing.

The Treasury Department issued rules last week aimed at dismissing some of the uncertainties around Roth 401(k) plans.

The Internal Revenue Service announced that while the phase-out of the tax credit for Toyota and Lexus hybrids continues, General Motors Corp. and Nissan hybrids still qualify for the full credit.

REPORT: BETTER JOB NEEDS TO BE DONE FOR 'INNOCENT SPOUSES'

Insurance company demutualizations became popular in the late 1990s. Facilitated by revised state laws, mutual insurance companies were attracted to conversion to stock companies for the same reasons that companies have long sought to be publicly held - greater access to capital. The policyholders of mutual insurance companies were generally granted cash or stock in return for their interest in the mutual insurance company.

If your marketing efforts include a newsletter, you know the value of providing clients, prospects and referral sources with information that they need to be successful. A focused newsletter is a tool that many CPA firms use to market their services and maintain communication throughout the year.

The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to redesign its Form 990, “Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax,” according to published reports.

A veteran business reporter once advised me that if I really wanted to gauge the culture and future of a company I was writing on, check out their customer service department.

In recent hearings before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, both the American Institute of CPAs and the New York State Society of CPAs called for the repeal of the oft-debated alternative minimum tax.

"Boomers have both unrivaled influence and rich networks of peer advisors,” says Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross, chief reputation strategist at Weber Shandwick, one of the world’s leading public relations firms.

Lacerte users want respect from their tax software vendor. And if they don’t get it soon, they’re going to look at alternatives.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has released preliminary data for the tax-filing season on returns received and processed as of March 10.

While the percentage of employers offering health benefit has fallen over the past five years, employers, individuals and government must share responsibility for providing heath and retirement benefits while allowing companies to remain competitive in the global marketplace, according to a study from the Government Accountability Office. In the report, the GAO examined the practices that employers are using to control the costs of benefits including * the current and emerging practices employers are using to control the costs of health care benefits; * The current and emerging practices employers are using to control the costs of retirement benefits and; * Employers' workforce restructuring changes. According to the auditor general, the share of employers offering health benefits dipped due in part to an 8 percent plunge in the small business sector offering benefits. Meanwhile, despite active participation in define- benefit plans falling from 29 million in 1985 to 21 million in 2003 as employers terminated existing plans or froze benefits for active employees, active participation in defined-contribution plans rose from 33 million in 1985 to 52 million in 2003, as employers increased their offerings of these plans. The GAO said that like health and benefits coverage for active workers, an increasing share of retiree health benefits costs is being shifted to retirees, and many employers have terminated benefits for future retirees. The study pointed out that the challenges workers face in assuming greater cost, risk, and control of their health and retirement benefits make it more difficult for low-wage earners to afford health care coverage and save for retirement -- trends the investigative arm of Congress said would continue.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued for public comment draft versions of revised Form 1120-F, U.S. Income Tax Return of a Foreign Corporation, and related schedules, including Schedule M-3, new for 2007.Taxpayers with $10 million or more in total reportable assts filing Form 1120-F for tax years ending on or after Dec. 31, 2007, will be required to file Schedule M-3. Three other new schedules for Form 1120-F include: · Schedule H, Deductions Allocated to Effectively Connected Income Under Regulations Section 1.861-8; · Schedule I, Interest Expense Allocated Under Regulations Section 1.882-5; and, · Schedule P, List of Foreign Partner Interest in Partnerships. The new schedules will provide for increased disclosure of information regarding such items as allocable interest expense and home office deductions, as well as effectively and non-effectively connected income that is included in Form K-1 reported by a partnership to a foreign corporate partner and that is reportable by the partner on Form 1120-F. The new schedules also provide a consistent reporting format for all taxpayers. In addition, Schedules M-1 and M-2, previously included in Form 1120-F, are now separate forms. Schedule M-1, Reconciliation of Income (Loss) per Books with Income per Return is used by corporations with assets under $10 million. Schedule M-2, Analysis of Unappropriated Retained Earnings per Books, is used by corporations of all asset sizes. The draft form and schedules are available on www.IRS.gov, and any comments should be submitted by May 25, 2007, via e-mail to SchM3@irs.gov.

When it comes down to it, it’s with surprisingly little debate or complaint that the general populace submit to the payment of taxes.