Tax research

Tax and accounting software maker ATX has decided to hire a sales force to serve customers who are buying what it says is an increasingly complex product line.

The Internal Revenue Service is allowing limited exceptions from coverage of the new deferred compensation rules for certain stock appreciation rights, or SARs, that "do not present potential for abuse or intentional circumvention of the purposes" of Section 409A.

In addition to his role as a dictator who started World War II and sent millions of people to their deaths in concentration camps, Adolf Hitler was a tax evader, according to a recent report.

H&R Block Financial Advisors, the investment arm of the tax prep giant, agreed to pay a $500,000 fine and to return $325,000 in clients' mutual fund trading profits to settle charges brought against it by the National Association of Securities Dealers related to the market-timing of mutual fund shares by two of its former financial advisors.

The Internal Revenue Service has released tax tables to help taxpayers determine whether they would benefit from an optional new sales tax deduction.

RIA has added several new features, including enhancements to its financial reporting and management content, and expanded search capabilities in Tax Alerts, to the latest edition of its popular Checkpoint product.

Just as the Internal Revenue Service was becoming increasingly more aggressive in its settlement offers in tax shelter cases, and obtained a few additional weapons for its arsenal in the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, a series of defeats on the litigation front may force the agency to reevaluate some aspects of its strategy.

A taxpayer generally may exclude up to $250,000 ($500,000 for certain married couples filing joint returns) of gain realized on the sale or exchange of a principal residence. To be eligible for the exclusion, the taxpayer must have owned the residence and used it as a principal residence for at least two years during the five-year period ending on the date of the sale or exchange.

A group of former Intuit employees have launched TaxNet.com, which provides Internet-based filing of income taxes, along with electronic filing.

There may be no phrase in the English language more satisfying to say or hear than, "Problem solved!"For accounting and information technology professionals, it embodies a special meaning, in that someone, or something, has enabled their business to sidestep a potential hurdle and continue their strategy of providing client services to reach the ultimate goal of any business - profitability.

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Contact information for the vendors of the Accounting Today 2005 Top 100 Products and Ones to Watch.AccountantsWorld

Improving taxpayer service, enhancing enforcement of the tax law, and modernizing the Internal Revenue Service through its people, processes and technology should be the tax administration's top priorities for 2005, according to the American Institute of CPAs.

As the year winds down, tax practitioners are encouraged by more than the usual holiday cheer as they foresee both a pain-free and a profitable tax season ahead.

As the renowned Baby Boomer generation inches its way into the retirement years, employers are beginning to consider how this vast purge of experienced workers is going to affect the workplace.

Tax reform under the second Bush administration will most likely take the form of piecemeal tax cuts, according to participants in a tax panel sponsored by the Council for Electronic Revenue Communication Advancement, a government-private industry trade association. President Bush has said that he would appoint a panel to recommend changes to the tax code that would make it simpler, fairer and less burdensome.

As part of efforts to tighten ethical standards for tax professionals and curb abusive tax shelters, the Treasury has issued final regulations amending Treasury Circular 230, which governs the practice of attorneys, accountants and other tax professionals before the Internal Revenue Service.

With tax day fast approaching, CPAs may be feeling stressed. However, they may be able to make their own lives, as well as those of their small business clients, a little less tense by encouraging those clients to consider certain business expenditures before the upcoming tax season, according to Hewlett Packard and H&R Block.

Mphasis, which provides information technology and business process outsourcing through its operations in India, has launched an application service provider model of its Virtual Tax Room, used in outsourcing tax return preparation.

Triggered by congressional concerns over the marketing of abusive tax shelters by some accounting firms, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has proposed new rules restricting the ability of accountants to provide tax services to audit clients.