Tax strategies

Intuit has been closely monitoring congressional and IRS activity on the tax extension legislation passed by Congress late Thursday night and said it has completed various scenario plans and programmed its professional tax software applications to be prepared for all the latest tax law changes.

With just weeks to go before the end of the year, Congress has cleared tax relief legislation extending the Bush-era individual and capital gains and dividend tax cuts for all taxpayers for two years, as well as a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits.

The House approved an $858 billion extension of the Bush-era tax rates and unemployment benefits late Thursday night, a day after the Senate approved the bill, sending the bill to President Obama’s desk.

Nonprofit charitable tax-exempt organizations filed 313,121 information returns for tax year 2007, according to new statistics released by the Internal Revenue Service, an increase of 4 percent from 2006.

The American Institute of CPAs has launched a new public service tax website to help taxpayers better understand how the federal tax system works and connect with a CPA for tax help.

A federal judge’s decision striking down a key provision of the health care reform law, along with the near-certain repeal of the 1099 information reporting requirements in the law, indicate that President Obama’s signature achievement of the past year is likely to be chipped away in the years ahead before many of its provisions even take effect.

From hot air balloons to bagels, 2010 proved to be yet another year in which states and municipalities passed some strange tax laws in a desperate bid to raise revenues and close their budget gaps.

Only a handful of days remain to execute year-end tax strategies. Some techniques for this year reprise traditional advice that has legs year after year, while others, including reaction to whatever this year's lame-duck Congress has wrought, have a unique sense of urgency.

Former President Bill Clinton stood alongside President Barack Obama at a news conference and endorsed Obama’s deal with congressional Republicans to extend the Bush-era tax cuts and unemployment benefits.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has introduced a bill to extend the Bush tax cuts and unemployment benefits.

House Democrats met Thursday and overwhelmingly voted to block the Bush tax cut extension compromise announced earlier in the week by President Obama and Republican congressional leaders.

President Obama’s announcement on Monday of a compromise agreement with the Republican leadership should bring some end-of-year certainty to the tax landscape, but questions remain.

Edward S. Karl, vice president of taxation for the American Institute of CPAs, will host the U.S. Small Business Administration’s year-end tax-planning Web chat on Thursday.

President Obama held a news conference in which he sought to quell criticism from lawmakers from his own party of the deal he had struck with Republicans to preserve the Bush tax cuts even for upper-income earners for two more years.

Despite confusion created by recent and probable year-end tax legislation changes, the 2010 federal income tax environment is still quite favorable.

CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business, has entered into a partnership with Comtax, a provider of international tax planning software, to offer the Comtax System, which helps tax professionals reduce the tax costs of cross-border transactions.

The Senate failed on Saturday to overcome Republican-led opposition to two bills extending the Bush-era tax cuts to taxpayers making less than $250,000 and $1 million a year, prompting leaders to talk Sunday of progress toward a deal extending tax cuts for people at all income levels on a temporary basis, along with unemployment benefits.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has introduced a package of tax cuts for middle-class families after the House passed tax cut legislation Thursday extending the Bush-era tax rates.

House Democrats passed a tax cut package on Thursday aimed at extending the Bush-era tax cuts for taxpayers who earn below $250,000, but the prospects for passage in the Senate will depend on the deal worked out by a bipartisan group of four lawmakers and two Obama administration officials.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin, D-Mich., introduced legislation Wednesday that would extend the Bush-era tax cuts only for those making less than $250,000 a year, and provide a two-year AMT patch.