Tax planning

Behind the glazed white terra cotta facade of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in New Orleans is a 16-year legal battle with the Internal Revenue Service.

Unlike last year, tax planning for 2013 is not hampered by uncertainties over a looming fiscal cliff. Unfortunately, there is always some uncertainty and a few expiring provisions to warrant special attention by taxpayers.

Many small and midsize online retailers are worried about the impact on their profitability if federal legislation is approved that would require them to collect sales taxes from customers, according to a new survey.

U.S. and French officials signed an intergovernmental agreement Thursday to advance the implementation of the Foreign Accounting Tax Compliance Act.

Thomson Reuters has released a Web-based analytical tool to help tax practitioners and employee benefits professionals make decisions about the Affordable Care Act for their clients and companies.

Municipal bonds typically represent an investor’s safest asset or the most conservative component of the overall investment portfolio.

A new study examines the likely effects of a change in the U.S. corporate tax system from the current worldwide system to a new hybrid system similar to the territorial systems used by other developed countries and concludes that such a change would increase the repatriation of foreign earnings by U.S. multinational companies.

Millionaires who avoid payroll taxes by claiming income as business profits are among those in Democrats’ sights as congressional budget negotiators seek a deal by next month.

If you’re an accountant who loses money, and your spouse is a real estate agent who makes money, can you combine your business with your spouse’s in order to calculate self-employment tax?

Senators Robert Menendez, D-N.J. and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., have introduced bipartisan legislation to help entrepreneurs start and grow a small business and comply with complex tax rules.

A new report from the Government Accountability Office examines corporate tax deferral, highlighting the distortionary impact on the economy.

A bipartisan bill has been introduced in the Senate with the goal of simplifying income tax collections for taxpayers who work in multiple states.

A pair of senators have introduced bipartisan legislation that would rescind tax write-offs for illegal corporate behavior in an effort to hold corporate wrongdoers accountable.

A dozen emerging technology companies, including Twitter and Facebook, have enough unused tax breaks for executive stock options to eliminate all income taxes on the next $11.4 billion of U.S. income they collectively earn, according to a new report, giving them a net federal tax cut of $4 billion.

Thomson Reuters has released a new special report on year-end tax planning for 2013 for individuals and businesses.

The American Institute of CPAs has written a letter to the Internal Revenue Service identifying 17 areas in which the IRS should provide additional guidance to tax practitioners and taxpayers in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision ruling section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., a senior member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, has introduced legislation to expand the New Markets Tax Credit program to provide up to $100 million a year to help distressed communities whose military installations have been either closed or realigned.

On Sept. 13, 2013, two years after the 2011 temporary and proposed regulations, the Internal Revenue Service issued final and reproposed tangible property regs. There are a number of differences between the final and reproposed regulations as compared to the 2011 regs, with a stated goal of simplifying and clarifying them and making them more administrable.

It’s the time of year to again start thinking about expiring tax provisions. Usually the first thing that comes to mind is the alternative minimum tax, but this particular issue was “fixed” in January of this year by the fiscal cliff bill. That still leaves a number of expiring provisions, according to Robert Kerr, senior director of government relations at the National Association of Enrolled Agents.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have loosened the “use it or lose it” rule for flexible spending arrangements for health care, allowing participants in health benefit plan to carry over up to $500 from their FSA from year to year.