Tax strategies

The House approved an amended version of a bill that delivers tax relief to members of the armed services, in addition to emergency volunteers.

The Internal Revenue Service has outlined new procedures under which informants could report violations of tax laws and possibly claim rewards based on the amount of additional tax, penalties and interest owed.

The House has passed a fix for the alternative minimum tax, voting 352-64 to keep up to 23 million taxpayers from falling prey to the AMT.

The Treasury Department has issued a report on improving the competitiveness of the U.S. business tax system, offering three alternative approaches designed to cut the corporate tax rate in the U.S. compared to other industrialized countries.

A majority of companies do not have a formal, documented tax risk management strategy in place, according to a newly released survey.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued guidance on whether a taxpayer can claim a dependency exemption deduction for an unrelated child.

'Tis the season for holiday cheer and especially gifts, so herewith are some presents that accountants might like to find coming down the chimney this year in the company of a chubby bearded man.

The cost of preparing the average tax return rose just 2 percent in the past two years, according to a newly released survey.

The Internal Revenue Service improved most of its filing season services during 2007, but there are still opportunities for better performance this coming season, according to a new report.

IRS is driven in its desire to close the tax gap and views tax practitioners as being an obstacle in the middle, according to Charles Rettig with the law firm of Hochman, Salkin, Toscher & Perez, P.C.,in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Environmental whistleblower Marrita Murphy has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her civil rights tax appeal after another appeals court reversed its own original ruling.

A computer program the Internal Revenue Service has been developing to expedite tax-exempt status requests is behind schedule, over budget and not performing all that well either, according to a report from the Treasury Department's in-house watchdog.

The Internal Revenue Service has appointed Tim Hubbs, president and CEO of Drake Software, as the chairman of its Electronic Tax Advisory Committee.

Notice 2008-1 provides rules under which a 2 percent shareholder/employee in an S corporation is entitled to the deduction under Section 162(l) for accident and health insurance premiums paid or reimbursed by the S corporation and included in a shareholder or employee's gross income.

Igor Olenicoff, a billionaire industrial and commercial property developer, has pleaded guilty to filing a false 2002 tax return and paid $52 million in back taxes and penalties in an effort to stay out of jail.

While friends and family are more concerned with the holidays at hand, tax practitioners are taking last-minute steps to ensure that they and their clients have a successful tax season.Training people to be able to staff the offices properly is key for Peoples Income Tax Inc., said chief executive Charles McCabe. "There just isn't a supply of qualified preparers out there who are willing to work for three months. And if someone is available, you have to ask why they are available - you don't want to hire someone else's problem."

FASB DELAYS FIN 48 FOR PRIVATE COS.Norwalk, Conn. - The Financial Accounting Standards Board has decided to defer the effective date for FASB Interpretation No. 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes, for nonpublic entities.

The House has voted to approve a $78 billion bill that would provide a temporary fix to prevent the alternative minimum tax from spreading to about 23 million more taxpayers this coming tax season.Congress was under pressure to pass an AMT fix in time to allow the Internal Revenue Service to produce the necessary tax forms without delaying processing and refunds. However, in a sign of the controversy over provisions to raise taxes on some high-income taxpayers and close loopholes, no Republicans voted for the bill and eight Democrats voted against it.

The current wrangling over the alternative minimum tax is a symptom of the larger problems with having a Tax Code built on patchwork over nearly a century, to the point that it resembles a Rube Goldberg contraption, according to David A. Lifson, president of the New York State Society of CPAs and a co-managing partner at New York-based Hays & Co. LLP.Lifson, who recently testified before the Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee on the AMT, also chaired the NYSSCPA Committee on Tax Reform that issued a comprehensive proposal to revise the current tax system.

One week after Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., introduced his massive, dream tax reform proposal, and after acknowledging that that proposal had no chance of passage this year, Chairman Rangel introduced a more modest stop-gap proposal, H.R. 3996, including primarily one-year fixes for expiring provisions and some proposals to address the mortgage crisis.Most commentators seem to feel that this legislation has a fairly good chance of passing this year in something close to its present form.