Tax practice

IRS BEEFS UP TAXPAYER PRIVACY

The Internal Revenue Service hopes that new interim guidance for tax preparers will ease concerns over the expanded preparer penalties and heightened standards of conduct that must be met to avoid the penalties.

The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 has introduced a new paradigm of tax strategies for those who are falling behind on their home mortgage payments (or anticipate falling behind as the result of a pending adjustable rate mortgage reset).

President Bush said he would sign into law the economic stimulus package passed by Congress.

The Internal Revenue Service has improved its online refund-tracking tool and tax information publication.

A survey of leading corporate tax executives predicts that taxes will not be a major issue in Congress in 2008, apart from the one-year alternative minimum tax patch and the one-year extenders package.

The Senate and the House have passed an economic stimulus package that adds tax rebates for 20 million senior citizens and 250,000 disabled veterans to a package passed by the House last week.

The Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service have moved several boxes on Form W-2.

The White House has issued its budget for the coming year, and as usual it is already drawing complaints.

The Bush administration's budget proposals include a number of tax provisions, so the Treasury Department has released an explanation of the fiscal year 2009 revenue proposals, also known as the Bluebook.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service issued guidance on new pension-funding rules included in the Pension Protection Act of 2006.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued changes to the 2007 instructions for Form 1040 and Form 1040NR because of the Tax Technical Corrections Act of 2007.

GAO Comptroller General David Walker, who has spent the last three years on a "Fiscal Wake-Up Tour," again reiterated his agency's warning that the country is on an "imprudent and unsustainable fiscal path," while stressing the need for bi-partisan cooperation and the courage to make tough choices for the longer term. Walker, who has traveled to some 25 states on his tour, said simulations by the GAO and the Congressional Budget Office show that despite a three-year decline in the budget deficit, the U.S. faces "large and growing structural deficits driven primarily by rising health care costs and known demographic trends." The auditor general pointed out that the first wave of Baby Boomers has already filed for early Social Security retirement benefits -- and will be eligible for Medicare in just three years. Walker said rapidly rising health care costs are not simply a federal budget problem, but rather the No. 1 challenge to the U.S. and that the problem calls "for us as a nation to fundamentally rethink how we define, deliver, and finance health care in both the public and the private sectors." Walker said "While Congress and the administration are focused on the need for a short-term fiscal stimulus, our long-term challenge increases the importance of careful design of any stimulus package. It should be timely, targeted and temporary, while at the same time creating a capable and credible commission to make recommendations to the next Congress and the next president for action on our longer-range and looming fiscal imbalance."

The Senate Finance Committee held hearings on the nomination of Douglas Shulman to be commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

Congress can't seem to agree on what to do about an economic stimulus package, which could mire the effort to produce an effective package in time to do some good.

A prominent Senate Democrat said that he would add rebates for senior citizens who depend on Social Security to the economic stimulus package, along with an extension of unemployment benefits.

The House voted by a 385 to 35 margin to pass the economic stimulus package agreed to by President Bush and House leaders.

The California Society of CPAs and the California CPA Education Foundation launched a Financial Leadership Forum to provide education, training and other resources for CPAs and business and finance executives.

There may be 2-D bar codes in the future of paper-filed returns, if recommendations from the Government Accountability Office are followed.In its end-of-year report on last year’s tax season, the GAO said that the Internal Revenue Service exceeded the previous year’s performance by most measures. However, it noted a number of opportunities to realize additional savings and increase tax compliance, with the barcoding of paper returns among them.

In the last few days before Congress adjourned for 2007, a number of tax law changes finally made it through the two chambers and on to President Bush. The president has either already signed or indicated his willingness to sign each piece of legislation. Several of the provisions enacted will have an impact on 2007 tax returns.Even with this flurry of activity, a number of pieces of legislation, including most of the energy-related tax proposals, an agriculture bill with tax provisions, military tax relief, and the extension of expiring provisions, as well as a fairly extensive list of offsetting revenue raisers, got left off the table and will be addressed again in 2008. The following is a summary of each of the tax laws enacted, the principal provisions, and the impact, if any, on 2007 tax returns.