Tax practice

The mausoleum set up by Roland Burris, the former Illinois attorney general named to succeed Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate by disgraced governor Rod Blagojevich, includes on a list of accomplishments the fact that he was the first non-CPA to be on the board of the Illinois CPA Society.

They’re back and ready to dole out hundreds of billions of dollars in new tax cuts and spending, but will it be enough to restart the limping economy?

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson said in her annual report to Congress that taxpayers affected by the recession should be treated more compassionately by the IRS.

President-elect Barack Obama and his transition team reportedly plan to propose approximately $300 billion in tax cuts as part of an overall economic stimulus package.

The Internal Revenue Service has added four new tax experts to its IRS Advisory Council who will provide the agency with outside input on tax administration issues.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued new regulations on cost-sharing arrangements for multinational companies that provide some extra flexibility in transfer pricing schemes.

The Internal Revenue Service has set Monday, Jan. 5, as the deadline for victims of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike to qualify for tax relief.

The Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council's 2008 Report contains more than 70 recommendations on a wide variety of issues affecting tax administration. The recommendations focus on communication, relief and assistance due to the economic downturn."It's refreshing to see that communications are a concern," said Robert Kerr, senior director of government relations at the National Association of Enrolled Agents. "The IRS is charged with a bifurcated task - enforcement and education. In both realms they have to communicate fairly complex things."

E-FILING SURGES 12 PERCENTWashington, D.C. - Individual taxpayers e-filed nearly 90 million tax returns this year, an increase of more than 12 percent compared to last year, a record according to the IRS.

One technique for giving better focus to tax planning in a new year is to look back at the old one. Our column for this issue of Accounting Today uses this strategy, looking at significant 2008 tax developments from the perspective of their impact on tax planning in 2009.In examining 2008 developments for this review, we found that our results fit neatly into a Top 10 list - coincidentally, long a staple of New Year's forecasting. Our list gathers significant 2008 tax developments based on their impact on certain issues or themes. Our list focuses only on those developments that have an impact on strategies that may be implemented in 2009 - that's the reason why a significant amount of tax legislation didn't make the list, but also the reason why some letter rulings and similar types of developments made the cut.

A Tax Court judge has ruled that taxes on elderly gamblers' casino winnings are not discriminatory.

The Treasury Department plans to purchase $5 billion in equity from GMAC, and lend another $1 billion to the automobile-financing company.

The Treasury Department released a letter with responses to 10 questions posed by a recent report that criticized its management of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The Internal Revenue Service should reexamine the "tolerance levels" it uses to request missing tax forms and schedules from taxpayers, the Treasury Department's inspector general recommended in a new report.

The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department said they would consider a complicated tax maneuver involving controlled foreign corporations a "transaction of interest," but stopped short of identifying it as a "tax avoidance transaction."

A group of 61 members of Congress has written to President Bush asking him to suspend rules that require senior citizens to withdraw money from their severely depleted retirement accounts by the end of the year.

The Internal Revenue Service is proposing temporary regulations on foreign base company sales income.

The Internal Revenue Service has finalized the revised Form 990 and 990-EZ information returns that tax-exempt organizations will need to file next year.

Lawmakers have passed more than 100 new tax law changes that could help millions of individual taxpayers save money on their taxes this coming season.

The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department have decided against changing a rule that requires retirees to withdraw a minimum distribution from their retirement savings accounts by the end of 2008.