Tax practice

With the Democrats winning control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, the tax legislative outlook has shifted to new priorities and concerns, according to Mel Schwarz, a partner in Grant Thornton’s National Tax Office.

Business tax reform needs a bipartisan, national consensus, but is absolutely necessary for the country to remain competitive in a global economy, according to Senate Finance Committee chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa."I think the consensus is there that the business tax system is in desperate need of reform," he told a recent hearing on the business tax system. "But we need to start building consensus on how to do it."

The use of private annuities to shelter gain on appreciated property has come to an abrupt halt, if the Internal Revenue Service has its way.Whether the IRS can withstand pressure to withdraw or substantially amend new proposed regs before they are made final, or whether the final regs can withstand judicial challenge, remains to be seen. For now, however, effective for annuity transactions after Oct. 18, 2006 (subject to a relatively brief six-month "estate planning" exception), the division between "old rule" and "new rule" is dramatic.

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Mark Everson said he’s happy with the agency’s enforcement efforts for the 2006 fiscal year -- with tax collections totaling some $48.7 billion.Everson, who’s now been on the job for three and a half years, has long stressed the need to improve on his agency’s collection efforts. “The bottom line for our enforcement efforts shows that dollars collected rose again last year,” he said in a statement.

The Internal Revenue Service encouraged U.S.-based employees and former employees of foreign embassies, foreign consular offices and international organizations to participate in a one-time settlement initiative to resolve tax matters related to their employment.The offer is only open to U.S. citizens, green-card holders and foreign employees with a U.S. tax obligation. Accredited diplomatic personnel are generally exempt from income taxes on their wages under international treaties or agreements.

After previous testimony from the Government Accountability Office that federal contractors have abused the tax system with little consequence, the office was asked to review the Internal Revenue Services coding of tax debt excluded from the Federal Payment Levy Program.The levy program is an automated system used to collect unpaid taxes from certain federal payments, and the GAO estimated that as of Sept. 30, 2005, over 500,000 tax records -- equated to about $2.4 billion in tax debt -- contained inaccurate codes that IRS systems used to exclude tax debts from the program. Among the inaccuracies were tax debts coded as having active installment agreements, even though the tax debtor had stopped making payments.

The Internal Revenue Service announced a formula allowing businesses and tax-exempt organizations to estimate their federal telephone excise tax refunds.In May, the government announced that it would stop collecting the federal excise tax on long-distance telephone service beginning Aug. 1, 2006, and provide refunds for taxes billed after Feb. 28, 2003.

In a new report to Congress, the Government Accountability Office takes a hard look at how the Internal Revenue Services manages its paperwork and customer service.

In a 25-page response NCAA president Myles Brand made an adamant case for his association’s tax-exempt status, following questions raised by the outgoing chairman of the House’s Committee on Ways and Means.Brand cited new NCAA penalties for poor team-wide academic performance and rising player graduation rates as evidence of the association's attention to education, adding that school spending on athletics -- including hikes in coaches' salaries -- are driven by a media and consumer market beyond the association’s control.

An average refund of $963 is waiting for 95,746 taxpayers whose refund checks have been returned to the Internal Revenue Service as undeliverable.

New guidance from the Internal Revenue Service stresses the need for employers to track the amount of expense reimbursement allowances paid to employees on a per diem basis.

A partnership between Wolters Kluwer business CCH and consulting firm National Tax Credit Group LLC will allow the companies to offer online delivery of federal and state location-based incentive information.

Democratic leaders are already making promises that the future of the alternative minimum tax will be the focus of the debate over next year's budget, according to published reports.

The Government Accountability Office has given good marks to the Internal Revenue Service’s 2005 and 2006 financial statements, but said that the agency did have to overcome “serious internal control and financial management systems deficiencies.”

The Internal Revenue Service announced increases in user fees for installment agreements.The increases -- the first since the fees were implemented in 1995 -- result from increases in labor and other costs of processing the various applications.

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Mark Everson announced the of two new deputy commissioners, in personnel moves effective Dec. 1.Kevin Brown, currently the commissioner of the IRS Small Business and Self-Employed Division, will become deputy commissioner for Services and Enforcement, responsible for overseeing the agency’s four operating divisions, Criminal Investigation and the Office of Professional Responsibility.

My fifth grade teacher was, in, simplistic terms, an angry dolt who never should have been allowed in front of a classroom of impressionable young minds.

Home mortgage loan giant Fannie Mae announced that it expects the tab on a review of its accounting, as well as the preparation of up-to-date financial statements for the first time since the end of 2004, to run upwards of $1 billion this year.

Personal exemptions and standard deductions will rise, tax brackets will widen and income limits for individual retirement accounts will increase in 2007, due to inflation adjustments announced by the Internal Revenue Service.

The Tax Court reaffirmed that proceeds from the sale of a right to future annual lottery payments constitutes ordinary income, not capital gain, after reviewing two test cases involving winners of the Florida State Lottery.