Tax research

In one of the stiffest jail sentences handed down in a tax case, Dallas' Daniel A. Fisher was sentenced to serve 235 months and pay a $1 million fine.

As the Senate approved a measure with $60 billion in tax cuts, the House will consider its own measure containing $56.6 billion in cuts. Both plans are spread over the next five years.

Although President Bush's tax reform advisory group recommended against shifting the U.S. to a European-style value added tax or a national sales tax system, congressional advocates of consumption taxes haven't given up the fight.

The Senate will debate a tax bill that would cut taxes by about $61 billion over the next five years, and would include a $5 billion tax next year for the nation's biggest oil companies.

Citing a lack of Republican support, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, yanked a near-$70 billion tax bill prior to a committee vote -- a measure that would have extended 15 percent rates on capital gains and dividends for five years.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued Notice 2005-88, which explains steps that large corporations and tax-exempt organizations can take to seek waivers from electronic filing requirements.

The heads of the nation's five major oil companies testified about their $30 billion in third-quarter profits before a joint session of the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee and Commerce Committee.

Taxpayers will be able to request an automatic, six-month filing extension for most common individual and business returns, according to new regulations released by the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, announced a plan to cut taxes by nearly $70 billion by 2010.

The current business and regulatory climate has fueled so much demand for accountants across the board that it will make seasonal staffing during tax time more difficult than ever, according to industry observers."Demand is even higher than last year, with more needs and less people available," said John Grammer, CPA, regional managing director of Spherion's professional services division in New York. "Firms are calling up and wanting to increase our fees, hoping if they pay us more we'll send qualified people to them rather than somewhere else. But besides being unethical, even if you pay me double it won't make any difference as to how many qualified candidates I can get."

States have taken two different paths in response to falling revenue from corporate tax collections.On the one hand, some states have focused on lowering corporate taxes or at least changing them to make themselves more attractive for investment. At least five states have debated bills to reduce corporate tax rates in 2005, while dozens of others have introduced bills that shift corporate taxes away from the property and employees of corporations, and onto the customers of corporations.

Several provisions of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 have required tax advisors to be very proactive with their clients to consult with them about the impact of the statutory changes, as well as subsequent regulatory developments.Among the more significant areas requiring immediate attention have been the new domestic manufacturing deduction, the brief window for repatriation of dividends, the tax shelter reporting and disclosure rules, and the new requirements with respect to nonqualified deferred compensation.

The Internal Revenue Service released its enforcement results for fiscal year 2005.

The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform submitted two proposals to the Treasury Department after months of work -- the first pushing for major simplification of the current income tax system and a second recommending changes for businesses that lead to an indirect tax on consumption.

I've been rattling off a canned two-line description of the restrictions put on the work of the President's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform for so many months now, that I've stopped recognizing the restrictions for what they are.

The Internal Revenue Service announced a limited opportunity for taxpayers to come forward and settle an array of transactions that the IRS considers abusive.

A federal judge ordered the Internal Revenue Service to pay Warren Buffett's investment company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., more than $23 million in taxes and interest for disallowing certain deductions dating back to 1989.

Ameriprise Financial Inc. will pay $1.25 million to settle an enforcement action brought by regulators over its sales of Section 529 college savings plans, the company said. Ameriprise neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.

With the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform due to report Nov. 1, we asked industry leaders, many who made Accounting Today's recently released 2005 Top 100 Most Influential People list, to tell us what sort of tax system they would create.

The Internal Revenue Service and the Free File Alliance have extended their partnership, a pact that provides free tax services and electronic filing to an eligible pool of 93 million taxpayers, and providing important new consumer protections.