Bloomberg BNA Offers 2016 Outlook on Tax and Accounting

Bloomberg BNA is releasing its annual report on the year ahead in tax and accounting, containing a collection of over 20 articles from its reporters on the outlook for tax legislation, international taxation, state taxes, Supreme Court tax cases, accounting standards and other topics.

The annual report is focusing on politics this year. “Because it’s a presidential election year, it’s a much more political outlook,” said Brett Ferguson, deputy news director of tax and accounting for Bloomberg BNA. “We talked to lawmakers and policy experts. This year it seems like the tax policy discussion is going to take a back seat to the politics.”

The issues of corporate taxation and international taxes also have a political angle. “As we look forward, topics like corporate inversions are still going to be worked on,” said Ferguson. “There’s still going to be a big focus this year on trying to stop tax avoidance by multinational companies as a global effort. Then there are other things that sneak in as well, like how partnership audit rules will be implemented and whether large partnerships may want to rethink their partnership agreements in the context of the new law and new rules that will be coming about partnership audits.”

Separately, Bloomberg BNA announced last week that its BNA Income Tax Planner software has been updated to support the recently approved Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015. The PATH Act extends or makes permanent the individual tax breaks that have been considered temporary, but that Congress repeatedly renews. The law should ease concerns this tax season about the perennial tax extenders.

For the report, Bloomberg BNA looked at the top issues in various areas of tax and accounting. “What happens now that the IRS has decided to delay its efforts on rules on campaign contributions by tax exempts? That’s one of the areas,” said Ferguson. “Another focus is on whether the Supreme Court will listen to oral arguments on STARS tax shelter transactions. Then there’s what to watch for in terms of international tax reform in Congress this year, what could happen, what the discussion will be and how it might ultimately play out in 2017.”

The report will be published as a special supplement to Bloomberg BNA’s Daily Tax Report. For more information, click here.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Tax practice Finance International taxes Audit Tax research Accounting standards
MORE FROM ACCOUNTING TODAY