Tax strategies

The U.S. Small Business Administration highlighted some of the main tax incentives for small businesses that were extended as part of last week’s fiscal cliff legislation.

President Barack Obama signed the legislation that enacts a last-minute budget deal and averts income tax increases for most U.S. workers, marking an end to a yearlong impasse.

Even though President Obama indicated only last Friday that the fiscal cliff deal likely to be produced by the January 1 deadline would be a basic package, lawmakers managed to come out with a surprisingly comprehensive set of tax provisions, some with long-lasting effects.

The House passed a deal to avert an income tax rate increase on middle-class families on Tuesday night, following a New Year’s Eve vote by the Senate, sending the bill to President Obama for his signature.

The Internal Revenue Service released new income tax withholding tables for 2013 late Monday to reflect the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and the more recent payroll tax cuts of 2011 and 2012, but noted that the guidance would be modified if Congress acts.

The U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan budget deal two hours after income tax cuts expired, reaching an after-deadline deal to undo the potential economic harm of $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts.

The U.S. House of Representatives doesn’t plan any votes on the federal budget tonight, meaning that Congress for now will fail to avert $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts set to start at midnight.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rejected the latest Republican offer to resolve the U.S. fiscal crisis as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reached out to Vice President Joe Biden in an effort to break the impasse.

President Barack Obama summoned congressional leaders to a White House meeting three days before a year-end deadline to avoid $600 billion in spending cuts and tax increases as lawmakers gave little sign they intend to act together on a budget plan.

A variety of tax breaks are due to expire at the end of 2012 (or have already expired at the end of 2011) unless Congress and the Obama administration manage to agree on a deal to extend the current tax rates and avert the fiscal cliff. Here's a sampling of some of the most notable tax breaks before they're going, going, gone.

Congress is scheduled to return Thursday, with one of its top priorities a deal to avert the December 31 “fiscal cliff” deadline of looming tax increases and automatic spending cuts, but it will need to work quickly or reach some type of interim agreement.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader who has stayed largely outside the U.S. budget fight this year, will be thrust into prominence just five days before the deadline for tax increases and spending cuts.

IRS Acting Commissioner Steven T. Miller warned Congress on Wednesday that if lawmakers fail to extend the traditional alternative minimum tax patch, up to 100 million American taxpayers could be affected, and most taxpayers might not be able to file their tax returns until late March 2013 or later.

Payroll service provider Paychex has provided a list of five tax benefits that small businesses, and their accountants, should consider before the end of the year.

CCH has introduced a new tax planning tool to help tax advisors and their clients keep a step ahead of the fiscal cliff negotiations in Congress and the White House.

More than half of accountants are seeing their business owner clients making changes in their businesses as a result of the uncertainty surrounding the fiscal cliff, according to a new survey by the financial information company Sageworks.

A pair of lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill in the House to end a 78-year-old tax provision that includes dividends from controlled foreign corporations in personal holding company income.

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Tuesday that House Republicans would introduce a bill to raise tax rates for millionaires as a “Plan B” in case his negotiations with President Obama on averting the fiscal cliff fail to produce an agreement.

President Barack Obama lowered his tax revenue demand by $200 billion and offered to start tax rate increases at $400,000 in income instead of $250,000, moving closer to a budget deal with House Speaker John Boehner.

House Speaker John Boehner offered to raise income tax rates on households earning more than $1 million a year in exchange for containing the cost of federal entitlement programs, as part of a deal with President Barack Obama to cut the federal deficit, according to two people familiar with the talks.