Tax strategies

Hurricane Sandy has proven to be one of the most costly storms in U.S. history. Now being dubbed Superstorm Sandy, the aftermath has many of us questioning our own disaster preparedness.

President Obama urged Congress to agree to a deal to extend the Bush-era tax rates for the middle class on Wednesday, while agreeing to consider other tax reform measures for wealthier Americans.

Nearly eight in 10 small business owners are aware of the so-called “fiscal cliff,” according to a new poll that also found they are concerned about the impact of the combination of tax increases and automatic spending cuts that are set to take effect on Jan. 1 if Congress and the President can’t agree on a plan to reduce the deficit by year’s end.

Lowering the corporate tax rate on retailers could create more than 327,000 jobs in the first year, save consumers $10.2 billion, and increase salaries and wages by more than $10 billion, according to a new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, commissioned by a retail trade group.

With tax cuts galore expiring at the end of the year, and steep cuts in both defense spending and discretionary spending on the horizon, Democrats and Republicans in Washington are doing a complicated dance at the edge of the so-called fiscal cliff.

White House officials have quietly lobbied Wall Street and the business community over the last several months to support President Barack Obama’s plan to impose higher taxes on the wealthy to cut the deficit and avert going over the fiscal cliff.

A Thomson Reuters tax analyst is offering end-of-year tax-planning tips for U.S. corporations, detailing various options based on possible legislative actions in Congress.

The race is on for wealthy Americans to save on taxes before Jan. 1.

President Barack Obama, fresh from his re-election, turned his attention Friday to the economy, offering to talk with Congress about how to avoid the prospect of automatic tax increases on the middle class.

With the election out of the way and efforts taking shape in Washington to resolve the threat of automatic tax increases and the fiscal cliff, CPAs and certified financial planners are recommending ways to protect their clients no matter what Congress and the Obama administration ultimately decide to do about the tax laws for next year.

It may be some time before Congress and the Obama administration decide what to do about the tax rates for next year, so it’s a good idea to plan for various alternative scenarios just in case.

Corporate enterprise tax software provider Vertex Inc. has released Vertex Tax Accounting, a product designed to improve global provisioning as well as provide a source for modeling tax planning strategies.

The election results, while no surprise, have pretty much left us where we were in terms of tax policy, according to Roger Harris, president of Padgett Business Services.

In the aftermath of the elections, the payroll tax cut appears to be one of the likely casualties of the scramble to resolve questions over expiring tax cuts and the looming fiscal cliff during the lame-duck session of Congress.

The chances for comprehensive tax reform occurring in the wake of Tuesday’s elections are murky at best, with a divided Congress and a re-elected President who has been unable to persuade Republicans to support his tax policies.

The re-election of President Obama is likely to result in substantial changes for taxpayers, especially with the expiration of the Bush-era tax rates approaching.

President Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech early Wednesday morning after winning re-election in a hard-fought campaign against Republican rival Mitt Romney as the U.S. faces the risk of another plunge into recession with the expiration of the current tax rates coupled with deep automatic spending cuts.

The Internal Revenue Service’s decision to modify the timelines for withholding agents and foreign banks to comply with the stiff new due diligence requirements under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is providing them, as well as taxpayers and preparers, with some welcome relief.

The outcome of next week’s election is likely to determine tax policy, but some elements may be outside the control of whoever gets elected to the White House and Congress.

Tax practitioners are working harder nowadays to keep up with a changing profession, an official with the American Institute of CPAs told attendees at Accounting Today’s Growth & Profitability Summit.