Practice Management

A Goldman Sachs investment banker, who earned $115,000 in 2002, will not be able to take all of the $55,000 charitable contribution deduction she took for that tax year -- $49,000 of which she took for donations of used clothing to a thrift store.

In an early spurt of spring cleaning, I came across an ancient, yellowed clipping from the New York Post. Although there was no date on it, it is clearly from 1986, the year the Bears won the Super Bowl and Ronald Reagan got his tax reform. It tells the story of then-Treasury Secretary James Baker, who in his enthusiasm for both rap music and a simpler tax code, broke out into rhyming couplets during a rally to tout tax reform. His poetic achievement was based loosely on the Chicago Bears’ “Super Bowl Shuffle,” which members of the team recorded en route to their victory in Super Bowl XX, and which reached No. 41 on the Billboard charts before actually landing a Grammy nomination.

The Thomson Corp. announced that it has acquired CrossBorder Solutions, a tax software company whose products are used for the planning and compliance needs of corporations.

The American Institute of CPAs has asked Congress to restrict the issuance of patents for tax strategies.

An Internal Revenue Service pilot project is asking the very tax lawyers and accountants who create shelters and take advantage of tax code loopholes to assist in drafting new tax rules, according to published reports.According to a recent New York Times article, its becoming increasingly common for the federal government to ask outsiders to do more of the work in drafting such rules -- a practice that critics say could create a conflict of interest if those outsiders have their own clients’ interests to consider.

Halfway through the filing season, the Internal Revenue Service said that 35.6 million taxpayers had chosen to have their refunds -- totaling more than $100 billion -- deposited directly into a savings or checking account this year.

The Internal Revenue Service announced that its revised taxpayer application for an offer in compromise, Form 656, is now available.

Intuit recently announced that more than 6,000 small businesses and midsized companies have switched to its QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions from more complex solutions.These customers are part of the 38,000 who have already selected the software to help run their businesses.

Making its annual announcement, the Internal Revenue Service said that it is holding more than $2.2 billion in unclaimed refunds for about 1.8 million people who failed to file a federal income tax return for 2003.

Independently-owned Los Angeles firm RBZ LLP has named three partners to share the firm’s managing partner position.