Tax practice

IRS LOOSENS RULES ON USE OF TAXPAYER INFO

Preparing for your first tax season can be a challenging task. While most have the technical knowledge to do the work, they often lack the confidence that experience provides. To help those facing their first tax season, I sat down with Erich Holmes, senior accountant in the Tax Services Department at Rea & Associates in Medina, Ohio. Erich has four years of experience in public accounting and he focuses on providing income tax services for individuals, partnerships and corporations.

The California Society of CPAs has signed on as one of the sponsors of a statewide media campaign that aims to raise awareness of the opportunity for California taxpayers to make a charitable gift while completing their state tax returns.

The Internal Revenue Service needed to scramble to implement various provisions of last year’s Recovery Act to boost the economy as quickly as possible, but it now has to improve its enforcement and reporting to safeguard against abuses, according to a government report.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, has introduced a bill that would tax more Wall Street bonuses than similar legislation introduced a week ago.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has unveiled a stripped-down version of the draft jobs legislation that was proposed only hours earlier by the bipartisan leaders of the Senate Finance Committee.

At last count, at least 11 parties have submitted amicus (friend of the court) briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court as it considers whether to hear an appeal from the First Circuit decision in Textron regarding a corporation’s tax accrual workpapers.

Senate Finance Committee leaders publicly released a draft Thursday of the widely anticipated jobs bill they plan to introduce, including payroll tax provisions and the extension of a number of tax breaks that expired last year.

New York City has launched a free Web-based tax preparation and electronic filing service that is available to all residents who earn less than $58,000.

The Senate has unanimously approved a bill that would prevent small businesses from incurring large tax penalties aimed at large corporations and wealthy individuals who invest in tax shelters.

Senate Democrats have begun circulating a draft version of the jobs bill they plan to introduce, with a series of tax breaks and tax extenders designed to lure Republican support.

A coalition of charities, aid groups, unions, and movie actors and directors has launched a campaign calling for a global 0.05 percent tax on banks’ speculative financial transactions, with the proceeds going to combat poverty and climate change.

There’s a certain amount of suspense these days in our nation’s capital about what’s going to happen not only with health care reform, but also financial regulations.

The Iowa Attorney General has filed criminal charges against two filmmakers and the former head of the Iowa Film Office accusing them of mishandling over $1.85 million in tax credits for a movie production.

A former UBS client who owned and operated several businesses that manufactured and sold watches has pleaded guilty to tax charges related to concealing over $10 million in secret Swiss bank accounts.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Jim Webb, D-Va., have introduced legislation that would impose a tax on large bonuses paid by Wall Street banks and other firms that received more than $5 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program in 2009.

A CPA has been suspended for 12 months from practicing before the Internal Revenue Service for providing false or misleading information when preparing his clients’ tax returns.

Despite its massive tax increases, the President’s 2011 Budget Plan contains a number of revenue provisions calculated to encourage business expansion and move the economy upward.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Chilean Finance Minister Andrés Velasco signed a new income tax treaty between the United States and Chile to provide certainty and stability of tax treatment for U.S. and Chilean cross-border investors.

The United States and Hungary have signed a new income tax treaty that brings an existing agreement signed by the two countries in 1979 into closer conformity with current U.S. international tax policy.