Tax practice

Senate Republicans blocked a bill on Tuesday that would have denied tax breaks to companies that move jobs offshore and provide companies with a two-year holiday from their share of Social Security payroll tax withholding for each employee they hire to replace a worker at a foreign-based facility.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued final regulations requiring paid tax return preparers to register with the IRS to obtain a Preparer Tax Identification Number and made available a new online application system for getting a PTIN.

The Senate debated a bill on Monday that would give companies a two-year holiday from their share of Social Security payroll withholding for each employee they hire to replace a worker at a foreign-based facility.

President Obama signed the Small Business Jobs Act into law on Monday, providing $12 billion in tax breaks and a $30 billion lending fund for small businesses.

The Internal Revenue Service said that individuals and businesses will no longer receive paper income tax packages in the mail.

Senate Democrats plan to hold a vote on the Bush tax cuts extension soon after the mid-term election in November, congressional leaders indicated.

Moving into this year's year-end tax planning season, tax practitioners are faced with a considerable degree of uncertainty caused by congressional indecision. Not only does the uncertainty as this column goes to press surround whether a long list of extenders and small-business tax breaks will in fact apply retroactively to Jan. 1, 2010; it equally involves whether the massive EGTRRA '01 tax cuts, due to expire at the end of 2010, will be extended into 2011. Strategies to prepare for a probable change in the 2010 tax rate structure for 2011 are the focus of this present column, in part because the outcome is somewhat more predictable than the fate of the extenders and small-business relief, and in part because it may take more preparation for clients to make plans to meet the challenges of changed tax rates.

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Thomson Reuters has acquired TaxSimple, one of the last independent software companies in the tax software market.

The continuing inability of Congress to agree on what to do with the expiring Bush tax cuts has real consequences, as small businesses remain stymied in their planning for the future.

Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has begun an investigation of the tax status of earnings by Prudential Financial on survivor death benefit accounts for life insurance policies it sold to members of the armed services.

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman said Friday that the IRS has been listening to complaints about its plans to require companies to disclose their uncertain tax positions and is relaxing some of the original proposals while phasing in the schedule over five years.

Playoff PAC, a group that opposes the college football Bowl Championship Series, has filed a 27-page legal complaint with the Internal Revenue Service against bowl organizations affiliated with the BCS.

Senate Democrats have decided to wait until after the mid-term election in November to hold a vote on legislation to extend the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which are due to expire at the end of this year.

The Senate Finance Committee held hearings Thursday on tax reform and the lessons learned from the Tax Reform Act of 1986 in the wake of a recently published report from a presidentially appointed panel.

The House passed a bill that will provide $12 billion in tax breaks and a $30 billion lending fund to small businesses by a party-line vote of 237-187.

Congressional Republicans introduced their “Pledge to America” during an event at a lumber store in Sterling, Va., with a document laying out promises to cut taxes and hold down government spending.

The Internal Revenue Service’s Modernized e-File system is facing “significant challenges” processing individual tax returns, according to a new government report.

The Senate Finance Committee held hearings Wednesday on the effects of tax and fiscal policy on the military and veterans and how those could be alleviated through the Tax Code.