Tax strategies

The Internal Revenue Service's announcement of two new alternative dispute programs for offer-in-compromise and trust fund recovery penalty cases comes as welcome news to practitioners who regularly practice before IRS Appeals."The IRS should be complimented in trying to do programs like these," said Marty Davidoff, CPA, Esq., of E. Martin Davidoff and Associates. "It's the IRS at its best. They're looking for different ways to resolve controversies."

CONGRESS KILLS MINIMUM DISTRIBUTIONS FOR 2009Washington, D.C - Congress has passed a waiver of the minimum distribution rule for 2009, but not for 2008, for employer-provided qualified retirement plans and individual retirement accounts and annuities in H.R. 7327, the Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008. The Treasury Department is studying whether to provide relief with regard to 2008 minimum distributions.

CCH spent nearly a century selling direct only. But two years ago, the vendor turned things around with a 100 percent indirect model for its sales tax application suite - CorpSystem Sales Tax Solutions.The vendor wanted to form relationships with top-tier Microsoft and Sage channel members who traditionally focus primarily on accounting systems.

On Dec. 16, 2008, the Internal Revenue Service released the long-awaited final tax return preparer regulations. Although they had been expected to be issued in November, they were further delayed by the changes to Code Sec. 6694 included in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. In addition to the final regulations, the agency also promulgated Notice 2009-5, providing some interim guidance for the 2008 tax filing season, and Revenue Procedure 2009-11, updating the list of IRS forms that are subject to the preparer penalties.The final regulations do not differ significantly from the proposed regulations, but make several changes in response to comments received. The interim guidance responds to the statutory changes made by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act and can be relied on by tax return preparers until final guidance is issued. Tax return preparers will want to make sure that they are familiar with these new requirements to avoid penalties as the 2008 tax return season gets underway.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has sent a letter to Congress signed by 27 U.S. companies asking for a two-year easing of taxes on debt purchases to be included in economic stimulus legislation.

The Senate Finance Committee has approved Timothy Geithner as the next Treasury secretary despite concerns over his taxes.

Accounting firm Wipfli has created a task force to help companies cope with the financial crisis.

Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner apologized for his tax mistakes and promised reforms of both tax policy and the controversial Troubled Assets Relief Program during a confirmation hearing.

Taxpayers in Delaware, Illinois, New York and Rhode Island who file paper returns will be sending them to different Internal Revenue Service centers this year.

TaxTalent has introduced a new contract-staff Web site, TaxForce.com, aiming to match the top 20 percent of tax professionals with companies in need of their high-level services.

KPMG has named a new chief information officer and a new leader of its tax restructuring and corporate recovery practice.

Florida plans to cut the amount of time it takes to process exam scores for CPAs by more than half, reducing what had been a three-month process to less than a month.

California Controller John Chiang said the state's budget crunch could force him to delay tax refunds and other planned expenditures.

The inspiring inauguration of President Barack Obama marked a historic moment and is sure to signal some broad tax policy changes in his administration.

S corporations are the nation's most common corporate tax designations.

Current tax law allows corporations to obtain a Quick Refund from the IRS when they overpay estimated tax during the year.

Eighty-three of the 100 largest publicly traded U.S. corporations in terms of 2007 revenue reported having subsidiaries in jurisdictions listed as tax havens or financial privacy jurisdictions, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

A federal court has ordered a Louisiana CPA to stop claiming improper tax deductions for the business expenses of his mariner clients.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued interim guidance on the ability of a tax return preparer to use statistical compilations of anonymous tax return information to support their business.

The Internal Revenue Service implemented a new electronic filing system knowing it contained security vulnerabilities that could put taxpayer information at risk.