Tax practice

The House approved the Tax Extenders Act of 2009, with extensions of a number of tax breaks that are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, including the R&D credit.

President Obama described a series of proposals aimed at encouraging companies to add more jobs, including tax cuts for small businesses.

Large corporations have dominated the use of the research tax credit, with 549 corporations with receipts of $1 billion or more claiming over half of the $6 billion of net credits in 2005, the most recent year available, according to a new study by the Government Accountability Office.

The Internal Revenue Service has appointed Victor Song as the new chief of its Criminal Investigation division, replacing Eileen Mayer, who is retiring next month.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued a new tax guide to help taxpayers and tax preparers get the most out of new recovery tax breaks and get a jump on preparing 2009 income tax returns.

Fifty-seven percent of the senior business executives surveyed by KPMG’s Tax Governance Institute expect some type of value-added tax to be introduced in the U.S. within five years, and 18 percent anticipate a VAT within 10 years.

A group of Democratic lawmakers has introduced legislation that would impose a tax on Wall Street securities transactions.

The White House convened a jobs summit in which President Obama heard from business and union leaders about various proposals for reducing unemployment, including tax incentives for job creation.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued its 2010 optional standard mileage rates for calculating the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes.

The Justice Department has filed papers seeking a federal court order to authorize the IRS to serve a “John Doe summons” on Ralph Janvey, the court-appointed receiver of accused fraudster R. Allen Stanford’s investment companies, in an effort to identify Stanford’s clients.

The House Financial Services Committee has approved legislation aimed at preventing the failure of large financial institutions from turning into a systemwide crisis.

Businesses will have to act soon on a bevy of tax breaks before they expire at the end of the year.

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The Internal Revenue Service has extended for another two years the Attributed Tip Income Program, which makes it easier for workers in the food and beverage industry to report the money they earn from tips.

A federal judge in San Francisco has signed a permanent injunction order barring the developer of a complex tax scheme involving numerous entities located around the globe and sales of over $1.25 billion in securities from promoting the scheme.

The tax subcommittee of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board has decided to postpone its report outlining tax reform plans for the White House after being inundated with suggestions.

The Internal Revenue Service plans to conduct a three-year research study on employment tax compliance starting in February.

A federal judge has allowed a class-action lawsuit to proceed over the IRS’s handling of an $8 billion refund program for the now-defunct telephone excise tax.

The Internal Revenue Service has found that the number of partnership returns increased 5 percent between tax years 2006 and 2007, from more than 2.9 million to over 3 million.

A group of Democratic lawmakers has introduced a bill that would impose a temporary war surtax beginning in 2011 to pay for the war in Afghanistan.