Tax strategies

Members of Congress have re-introduced legislation aimed at pressuring online Web sites to charge sales taxes to out-of-state customers, combining three competing bills that were introduced in the previous congressional term.

Representatives of various charities and nonprofits presented a case for preserving charitable deductions in the Tax Code in a hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee, arguing that imposing a cap on such deductions would cause many of them to cut back services at a time of critical demand.

Accounting and advisory firm Marcum LLP has introduced an interactive online map that tracks the status of same-sex marriage in each of the 50 U.S. states and how such unions are treated for tax purposes.

U.S. Tax Court Judge Elizabeth Paris handed the taxpayers a victory last Thursday involving a powerful estate tax planning tool: private annuities.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is pointing to wide disparities in the low tax rates paid by many multinational corporations compared to the taxes paid by individuals and small businesses.

President Barack Obama called for tax reform as a way to temper drastic automatic budget cuts during his State of the Union address.

The Internal Revenue Service Oversight Board issued a warning to Congress that the IRS is operating in a high-risk environment, with budget constraints leading to lower staffing levels and reduce customer service for taxpayers.

A pair of influential Senate Democrats have introduced legislation aimed at stopping multinational corporations from taking advantage of tax havens abroad.

For taxpayers who scrambled to make last-minute gifts at the end of 2012 to take advantage of the gift tax exemption and lower tax rate, it was a good thing to do despite the fact that within 23 hours of year’s end, legislation passed averting the return to the old-law $1 million exemption and 55 percent maximum tax rate.

State budgets across the country collectively lost an estimated $40 billion in tax revenue due to corporations and individuals shifting their profits and income to offshore tax havens, according to a new report.

President Obama urged Congress to agree on a combination of tax reform and spending cuts to achieve deficit reduction during a speech Tuesday in which he proposed an alternative to the drastic automatic spending cuts that were part of the budget sequester deal.

U.S. financial institutions may see their reporting burdens rise as a result of a law designed to prevent taxpayers from hiding funds offshore.

What has almost 4 million words and is one of the most complex and least transparent documents of the century? Our Tax Code.

The Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters has introduced a transfer pricing software product that helps multinational corporations like Ford Motor Company cut their tax bills.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has asked the National Park Service to conduct an internal review of the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives Program to ensure the program is maximizing opportunities to use historic preservation to promote economic development and revitalization of communities, particularly in urban areas.

Tax executives from Global 2000 companies are increasingly relying on tax compliance strategies and planning when dealing with sales and use taxes and indirect taxes like the value-added tax.

Evidence suggests that some medical device manufacturers are shifting the burden of the medical device excise tax directly to American hospitals and other health care providers, an industry association charges.

The Republican chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, Dave Camp, R-Mich., released a draft document Thursday proposing a series of tax reforms for various types of financial derivatives and other financial products, building on work done by his committee over the past two years.

Mergers and acquisitions are expected to increase in 2013, according to a new survey, with 76 percent of the more than 300 M&A professionals in the U.S. who were polled anticipating that their company will make at least one acquisition in 2013.

While Section 179D of the Tax Code expires at the end of 2013, opportunities exist in two areas: accelerating future projects into 2013 and reviewing projects dating back to Jan. 1, 2006 that resulted in energy savings.