Practice management

Home mortgage loan giant Fannie Mae announced that it expects the tab on a review of its accounting, as well as the preparation of up-to-date financial statements for the first time since the end of 2004, to run upwards of $1 billion this year.

Personal exemptions and standard deductions will rise, tax brackets will widen and income limits for individual retirement accounts will increase in 2007, due to inflation adjustments announced by the Internal Revenue Service.

The Tax Court reaffirmed that proceeds from the sale of a right to future annual lottery payments constitutes ordinary income, not capital gain, after reviewing two test cases involving winners of the Florida State Lottery.

Merck & Co. disclosed four separate tax disputes that have combined potential liabilities for the drug maker of more than $5.5 billion.

The Government Accountability Office offered some recommendations aimed at upping efficiency, but said that the Internal Revenue Service Office of Appeals has been doing a good job handling its process for collection due appeals.Under the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, taxpayers facing liens or levies can request a collection due process appeal hearing with the IRS office. By 2005, those cases represented about one-quarter of the office’s workload.

Not that things were going super smoothly before, but the path to turning any of President Bush’s second-term agenda into meaningful change just got a lot harder following yesterday’s election.

H&R Block announced a number of refund lending enhancements in a recent news release. A side-by-side comparison chart will outline all filing options, fees, and the time that it takes to receive a refund.H&R Block will also provide a report that states, among other things, that selecting a refund anticipation loan product means that taxpayers get less of their refunds. This announcement follows H&R Block's September announcement that it is reducing the cost of refund.

The Internal Revenue Service announced the selection of five new members for the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee.

While succession planning has taken the stage as one of the main issues facing CPA firms today, there is a correlated issue that firms cannot ignore - how they keep the intellectual capital that older partners have developed over the years.Firms today cannot afford to lose the wisdom, intellectual capital and relationships of their senior partners.

TOP HALF OF TAXPAYERS PAY HIGHEST TAX SHARE IN DECADES: The share of income taxes paid by the top half of taxpayers reached its highest level in decades, according to a report from the Joint Economic Committee.According to figures supplied by the Internal Revenue Service, the top half of taxpayers ranked by income paid 96.70 percent of the individual income taxes paid in 2004, compared to 86.05 percent in 1949, 89.35 percent in 1959, and 90.27 percent in 1969. The top 1 percent of tax filers paid 36.89 percent of 2004 income taxes, while the top 10 percent accounted for more than two thirds (68.19 percent) of those taxes. At least part of the increase in taxes paid by the higher percentile may be related to higher capital gains following the reduction of the capital gains tax rate in 2003.

New online payment options, changes to the Offer in Compromise program, and the impact of the National Research Program are, among others, key issues for the tax practitioner community.

The provisions of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, enacted on Aug. 17, 2006, include a package of changes related to tax-exempt entities and charitable contributions. Many of the provisions were designed to tighten perceived abuses involving tax-exempt entities and deductions for charitable contributions. A few of the new provisions, however, liberalize the charitable giving rules.

The Internal Revenue Service is seeking applications for vacancies on the Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Entities.

The Tax Policy Center has released a series of data tables taking a look at the effect of the major tax changes enacted since 2001.

The Internal Revenue Service today issued the 2007 optional standard mileage rates used to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes.

It took some time and an issue as seemingly innocuous as Katrina tax relief for the Internal Revenue Service to get dragged into a public relations skirmish this election season.The trouble start a couple of weeks ago, when Commissioner Mark Everson made an announcement that the IRS will postpone collection activities against taxpayers in the hardest-hit areas struck by Hurricane Katrina until 2007. That’s essentially buys those taxpayers a couple more months -- through the holidays -- after a one-year filing extension expired Oct. 16.

A federal report says that the Internal Revenue Service needs to put a better system in place to evaluate the results of the private debt collection program it implemented this fall.The Government Accountability Office looked at a trio of issues, including whether the IRS addressed critical success factors before limited implementation, whether the IRS will assess lessons learned before fuller implementation, and finally, whether the IRS’s planned study will help determine if using private contractors is the best use of federal funds.

The Internal Revenue Service is pushing back the printing schedule for a number of its tax products, including several versions of the 1040 and 1099 forms.Earlier this month, the IRS warned the Senate Finance Committee tax staff that delays in enacting a number of expiring tax breaks could have an adverse impact on tax administration -- affecting outside contracts with vendors to get the forms and instructions printed, and possibly eventually having a negative impact on collections.

In recent interviews, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Mark Everson has said that the agency will postpone initiating collection activities against taxpayers in areas struck by Hurricane Katrina until next year.

In response to a senator’s inquiry, the Government Accountability Office will review the operations of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division and compliance department.