Tax research

The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Policy have released a "priority guidance plan" for 2007-2008, outlining the 303 projects they plan to complete through June 2008.

An Atlanta federal court has permanently barred two Jackson Hewitt franchise employees from preparing taxes for others.

CCH and H&R Block signed an agreement that gives Block tax preparers and franchisees access to tax-training courses from the online CCH Learning Center.

A federal court has permanently barred a Queensbury, N.Y., man, Robert L. Schulz, and his organizations, We the People Congress and We the People Foundation, from promoting a tax scheme that encouraged businesses to stop withholding taxes from their employees' wages.

Grant Thornton named David Auclair as head of the accounting firm's National Tax Office.

President Bush said he is mulling the possibility of simplifying the corporate tax system, as long as the changes don't affect the amount of taxes the government collects.

Thomson Tax & Accounting received a U.S. patent for its ePropertyTax software's ability to manage multi-jurisdictional property tax information.

The American Institute of CPAs is criticizing proposed regulations for how post-death events might be considered in determining the value of a taxable estate.

The Internal Revenue Service wants teachers to know that a recent tax law change won't affect the way their tax is paid in the upcoming school year.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has removed the Marshall Islands from its list of "uncooperative" and "harmful" tax havens as the group continues to pare down the destinations for money laundering.

One of the more intriguing ideas in the energy bill that the House passed over the weekend was that of doing a "carbon audit" of the U.S. Tax Code. Exactly how Congress proposes to conduct such an audit is another matter.

The remaining five defendants in the KPMG tax shelter case are seeking a postponement in the trial until after October.

Bestselling financial writer Wade Cook was slapped with an 88-month jail term for defrauding the Internal Revenue Service.

House lawmakers passed a $16 billion energy tax bill that does away with tax breaks for oil and gas companies and shifts the incentives to alternative energy, despite the threat of a veto from President Bush.

The Internal Revenue Service said that owners of thousands of Ford, Toyota and Lexus hybrid vehicles can continue to claim the Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit, but the phase-out period for claiming the credit has already begun for Toyota and Lexus owners because of strong sales of the company's hybrids.

Sixty percent of Internal Revenue Service employees were duped into giving control of their passwords to unauthorized callers, according to an inspection report that found lingering problems with computer security years after they were supposed to have been corrected.

The Internal Revenue Service has released drafts of the updated income tax forms for corporations and partnerships, and is asking for comments before it finalizes the changes for tax year 2008 and beyond.

The Collection Financial Standards, the measures used by the Internal Revenue Service in negotiating installment agreements and offers in compromise, have been stuck in a time warp, according to observers."They haven't been updated since January 2006," observed New York-based attorney and CPA Michael Breslin, managing partner of FullServe Group LLC. "It has affected our ability to negotiate and it mandates higher amounts that are not fair. These numbers are based on 2005 figures and they were issued in early 2006."

Conceding that a full-blown repeal of the alternative minimum tax may now be near-impossible, representatives of the nation's enrolled agents urged Congress to place new restrictions on the type of tax preparers authorized to prepare AMT returns."Repealing the full AMT would be a huge step in the simplification of the Tax Code, but one that may no longer be in the cards," EA Frank Degen told the Senate Finance Committee on behalf of the National Association of Enrolled Agents. "Practically, we admit that full repeal of the AMT may be a bridge too far for Congress to cross."

PRIVATE COLLECTION PROGRAM SURVIVES HOUSE VOTEBy a margin of 240-179, House lawmakers approved funding for the Internal Revenue