Tax strategies

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.

Hundreds of business leaders who are part of a trio of advocacy groups have signed a letter calling on Congress and President Obama to close corporate tax haven loopholes that cost the U.S. Treasury $100 billion a year.

As talks drag on between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, many business leaders believe there will not be an agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff before the end of the year, according to a new poll by KPMG.

States are creating fiscal risks for themselves by neglecting to control the costs of tax incentives for economic development, according to a new report from the Pew Center on the States.

A recent Gallup survey found eight in 10 Americans consider it extremely or very important that Congress and President Obama agree on a plan to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff — automatic budget cuts and the expiration of Bush-era tax increases set for Jan. 1.

After a Sunday meeting between President Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, their staff members reportedly continued negotiations Monday on how to avoid the fiscal cliff.

Google Inc. avoided about $2 billion in worldwide income taxes in 2011 by shifting $9.8 billion in revenues into a Bermuda shell company, almost double the total from three years before, filings show.

CCH has issued a new tax briefing explaining the Internal Revenue Service’s proposed regulations on the Additional Medicare Tax and Net Investment Income Tax that will take effect in January as a result of the health care reform law.

As Democrats demand tax concessions from Republicans to avert a collision over the federal budget, Senate Democratic leaders are signaling that they may be willing to trade an entitlement spending overhaul to secure a deficit- reduction deal.

Failure by Congress to act on the alternative minimum tax by year’s end will lead to “significant” delays in tax filing and a strain on taxpayers, said Steven Miller, the Internal Revenue Service’s acting commissioner.

President Barack Obama again warned lawmakers that the U.S. economy will suffer unless there’s an agreement on a way to prevent more than $600 billion in automatic spending cuts and tax increases from taking effect.