Tax practice

President Obama urged Congress to agree to a deal to extend the Bush-era tax rates for the middle class on Wednesday, while agreeing to consider other tax reform measures for wealthier Americans.

The Internal Revenue Service has made progress in deploying its Modernized e-File system, according to a pair of new government reports, but unresolved performance issues are hampering the retirement of its older legacy systems for processing tax returns.

With tax cuts galore expiring at the end of the year, and steep cuts in both defense spending and discretionary spending on the horizon, Democrats and Republicans in Washington are doing a complicated dance at the edge of the so-called fiscal cliff.

The head of the Internal Revenue Service told lawmakers that if Congress fails to extend the traditional patch for the Alternative Minimum Tax, approximately 60 million Americans could be affected and about 33 million taxpayers could pay the AMT for tax year 2012.

White House officials have quietly lobbied Wall Street and the business community over the last several months to support President Barack Obama’s plan to impose higher taxes on the wealthy to cut the deficit and avert going over the fiscal cliff.

A Thomson Reuters tax analyst is offering end-of-year tax-planning tips for U.S. corporations, detailing various options based on possible legislative actions in Congress.

Now that the October 15 tax deadline has passed, many CPAs are turning their attention to the major changes put in place under the IRS’s new “repair vs. capitalization regulations.”

The IRS has issued a consumer alert about possible scams taking place after Hurricane Sandy.

The American Institute of CPAs has improved its Interactive Tax Checklists to allow tax professionals to work more efficiently next tax season.

President Barack Obama, fresh from his re-election, turned his attention Friday to the economy, offering to talk with Congress about how to avoid the prospect of automatic tax increases on the middle class.

The Internal Revenue Service identified 39.1 percent more attempts at fraudulent tax refunds last tax season than in the prior year, leading to tax refund delays early in tax season.

With the election out of the way and efforts taking shape in Washington to resolve the threat of automatic tax increases and the fiscal cliff, CPAs and certified financial planners are recommending ways to protect their clients no matter what Congress and the Obama administration ultimately decide to do about the tax laws for next year.

The Treasury Department said it is engaging with more than 50 countries and jurisdictions across the globe to improve international tax compliance and implement the information reporting and withholding tax provisions in the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.

It may be some time before Congress and the Obama administration decide what to do about the tax rates for next year, so it’s a good idea to plan for various alternative scenarios just in case.

CCH has introduced the new weekly electronic publication, Global Tax Weekly – A Closer Look, which promises to provide up-to-date analysis and insights into international tax developments.

The election results, while no surprise, have pretty much left us where we were in terms of tax policy, according to Roger Harris, president of Padgett Business Services.

In one of his last appearances before his departure on November 9, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman touched on a number of issues confronting the service and the accounting profession in general.

In the aftermath of the elections, the payroll tax cut appears to be one of the likely casualties of the scramble to resolve questions over expiring tax cuts and the looming fiscal cliff during the lame-duck session of Congress.

In the wake of Sandy, the IRS has unveiled programs to help victims of the hurricane.

The chances for comprehensive tax reform occurring in the wake of Tuesday’s elections are murky at best, with a divided Congress and a re-elected President who has been unable to persuade Republicans to support his tax policies.