Tax strategies

The State of California, struggling with a $19 billion budget deficit, is considering legalizing and taxing marijuana in a referendum on the November ballot.

The Swiss Parliament’s upper house voted Thursday in favor of Switzerland’s deal with the U.S. government to share the identities of 4,450 U.S. clients of UBS with numbered bank accounts.

Both the American Institute of CPAs and the American Bar Association Tax Section have told the Internal Revenue Service it should withdraw its proposed rule that would require companies with more than $10 million in total assets to disclose uncertain tax positions on the new Schedule UTP, Uncertain Tax Position Statement.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., wants to put a stop to U.S. companies that transfer customer service calls halfway around the world.

The House approved a bill to extend many expiring and expired tax breaks through the end of the year, as well as extend unemployment insurance benefits through the end of November.

An overwhelming majority of senior financial executives say their tax department’s top priority is not tax savings or their effective rate, but timely and accurate tax return and financial reporting, according to a new survey of CFOs and senior comptrollers by Grant Thornton LLP.

Extending the 2001 and 2003 federal income tax cuts would sharply increase the national debt, even if the extensions were limited to individuals earning below $200,000, according to a new report by the Pew Economic Policy Group.

The bipartisan leaders of the Senate Finance Committee have introduced legislation to create job opportunities for veterans returning home from war by providing tax credits for businesses that hire them.

CCH has published a pair of special briefing papers on the financial reform bill that passed in the Senate last week and the tax extenders bill introduced last week in the House and Senate.

Accountants are squarely on the front line of the problems with the 2010 estate tax hiatus, according to practitioners and estate-planning attorneys.

Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell has vetoed legislation that would have taxed bonuses paid to people who work for financial companies that received federal bailouts.

H&R Block has closed about 400 of its “under-performing” tax offices out of its network of 11,000 retail tax locations, and eliminated approximately 400 positions throughout the organization.

A long-awaited Senate energy and climate change bill is being introduced Wednesday by John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., with several tax provisions that would benefit nuclear power plants.

Tax accountants and others looking for clues on how the anti-tax Tea Party movement will affect this fall’s national elections received mixed signals from voters in a number of recent ballot initiatives.

Although the overall effects of the Obama administration's health care reforms may not be known for years, they promise to significantly affect CPAs and their clients.

2010

The recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, relies heavily on new tax provisions in the Internal Revenue Code to implement many of the goals of health care reform. The effective dates for many of these tax provisions are delayed - some do not take effect until 2013, 2014 or even 2018.

The majority of CFOs see state taxes increasing for their companies and believe that state and local tax compliance has become more demanding than federal tax compliance, according to a new survey by Grant Thornton.

The initial meeting of the White House deficit commission kicked off as a bipartisan panel considered ways to curb the growing federal budget deficit and the national debt.

A change in the structure of the taxation of carried interest, passed by the House last December and included in the Obama administration budget for 2011, is becoming more likely as the Senate searches for revenue offsets.