Tax practice

Two members of the House Financial Services Committee have introduced a bill that would establish a new Federal Accounting Oversight Board and probably loosen mark-to-market accounting standards.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told lawmakers that he was open to finding other ways to close the budget deficit besides limiting tax deductions for charitable contributions and mortgage interest for high-income taxpayers.

A UBS executive told a congressional committee probing tax shelter abuses that approximately 47,000 U.S. customers had accounts with the Swiss bank, but declined to release the names of the vast majority of them.

If your mortgage debt is partly or entirely forgiven during tax years 2007 – 2012, you may be able to claim special tax relief and exclude the debt forgiveness income, said the IRS.

Sabrix has debuted Taxcast, an online, interactive tool to help businesses stay on top of the latest sales and use tax obligations from 13,253 U.S. taxing jurisdictions.

The Obama administration’s stimulus bill and budget proposal are going to require the outlay of not only trillions of dollars, but the hiring of a lot more accountants to keep track of all that money.

Taxpayers will file 240 million federal tax returns and supplemental documents during calendar year 2009, according to projections from the IRS Office of Research, but that’s down 4.3 percent from estimated return filings of 250.8 million for 2008.

The Internal Revenue Service said it has approximately $1.3 billion in unclaimed refunds waiting for people who did not file a federal income tax return for 2005.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner explained the Obama administration’s budget and tax plans, and his handling of the financial industry bailout, to wary lawmakers in a congressional hearing.

The Internal Revenue Service could be doing more to encourage businesses to report miscellaneous income payments on 1099-MISC forms, according to a new report.

Here are a few tax law changes that taxpayers may want to note before filing their 2008 federal tax returns, according to the IRS:

Taxpayers’ rights were violated when the Internal Revenue Service filed liens on their accounts while they were in bankruptcy, according to a new report by a government watchdog.

Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., has written to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman asking him to provide tax relief to investors who were swindled by Bernard Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

Approximately 40 percent of online households plan to file their federal taxes via the Internet this year, up from less than 34 percent four years ago, according to a new report.

A federal court has permanently barred a Florida tax preparer who called himself “The Tax Doctor” from doing other people’s returns after he allegedly cost the Treasury at least $750,000 in bogus claims.

The Internal Revenue Service is not doing enough to crack down on tax preparers who use illegal tax shelters and to keep track of complaints against them by clients, according to two new reports.

Swiss bank UBS has been sued by a group of wealthy U.S. account holders who want to keep their identities and accounts from being revealed to the Internal Revenue Service.

The next meeting of the Financial Crisis Advisory Group is scheduled for March 5 as accounting leaders and regulators sort out issues related to the recession.

During his Fiscal Responsibility Summit on Monday, President Barack Obama discussed the possibility of lowering the statutory corporate tax rate while also closing tax loopholes that allow companies to reduce taxes.

This past year has produced an unprecedented amount of new tax legislation and regulations affecting preparers and taxpayers.