Tax practice

Nearly 99 million individuals filed their federal income tax returns electronically during 2010, a 3 percent increase in the IRS e-file rate, mainly due to taxpayers who prepared and filed their own taxes from their home computers.

H&R Block released an update on its lawsuit against its refund anticipation loan provider, HSBC, saying the two have been “in discussions.”

Homeowners making energy-saving improvements this fall can cut their winter heating bills and lower their 2010 tax bill as well.

The bi-partisan panel appointed in February by PresidentObama and charged with reducing the mammoth U.S, deficit, has released a draftproposal calling for billions in spending cuts as well as overhauling the taxcode in an effort to cut U.S. debt down to 60 percent of GDP by 2024.

A bipartisan pair of U.S. senators has written to the co-chairmen of the federal deficit commission asking them to consider raising the gas tax to finance highway construction nationwide.

A bipartisan group of key congressional committee chairmen pledged to patch the alternative minimum tax this year and wrote to IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman telling him to plan for AMT relief.

President Obama and congressional Republicans are laying out their positions more openly on the fate of the expiring Bush tax cuts as they prepare for negotiations later this month.

Individuals inappropriately received at least $380million in personal tax exemptions and tax credits in 2007 as a result of themultiple use of Taxpayer Identification Numbers according to a new reportreleased from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

CCH has introduced CCH Mobile, a mobile application that extends CCH’s IntelliConnect tax research service to the RIM BlackBerry and Apple iPhone, at its user conference in Orlando on Monday.

An Internal Revenue Service employee has been indicted for embezzling nearly $4,000 in taxpayer payments to the IRS.

President Obama urged Republicans in Congress to agree on a compromise on the soon-to-expire tax cuts, even as the prospects for an agreement remained uncertain.

Understandably buried beneath the news of last Tuesday'sRepublican onslaught in the House and to a lesser degree the Senate came thelatest earnings release from mortgage concern Freddie Mac.

The Justice Department has asked a federal court in Chicago to permanently bar tax lawyer John E. Rogers, a former partner at the law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP, from promoting tax shelters.

Whether you’re happy, sad or indifferent with the election results on Tuesday, elections do have consequences and will affect all of us. Especially tax preparers.

Six Texas-based CPAs won elections on Tuesday for seats ranging from the U.S. House of Representatives to the Texas Railroad Commission, while other CPAs around the country both won and lost.

President Obama, chastened by Democratic losses in the midterm elections, said Wednesday he would work with Republican leaders in Congress on the Bush tax cuts and other issues after a “shellacking” in the midterm elections.

California voters rejected ballot measures that would legalize and tax marijuana sales, while Washington State voters defeated a proposal to impose a tax on upper-income taxpayers, and Massachusetts voters said no to a ballot question that would have lowered state sales taxes.

Republicans will gain greater leverage in Congress now that they have won control of the House and captured more seats in the Senate, giving them more influence over tax policy and financial regulation.

The balance of power shifted in Washington as Republicans captured enough seats in the midterm elections to win a majority in the House, but Democrats managed to hang on to a more evenly divided Senate.

The Internal Revenue Service was inconsistent in how it processed foreclosure cases and coordinated with local United States Attorneys’ Offices, and needs to improve its procedures, according to a new government report.