Practice Management

Tax strategies don't just come from nowhere. They arise out of necessity and typically are reactive, constructed as work-arounds to avoid certain tax pitfalls or to meet certain rules. Viewed from this perspective and appropriate to the start of a New Year, we offer our list of the Top 10 tax developments of 2006 that will shape tax strategies in 2007.* No. 1: The IRS's use of the economic substance doctrine. Under the economic substance doctrine as adroitly used by the Internal Revenue Service Chief Counsel's Office in the Coltec case, Black & Decker and other tax-shelter-related litigation, a tax strategy can conform to the letter of the Revenue Code, yet fail to win the desired result.

Beard Miller Co. LLP had acquired two firms -- Jackson, N.J.-based Dennis M. Spinelli CPA LLC and Fagliarone Group CPAs PC’s trio of New York locations.Terms of the deals, which were effective Jan. 1, were not disclosed.

The Internal Revenue Service officially began its 2007 filing season on Thursday, making note of new developments, including telephone excise tax refunds, a new refund deposit feature and recently enacted tax breaks that may require extra attention.

Senators Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced legislation on the first day of the 110th Congress to repeal the individual alternative minimum tax beginning in the 2007 tax year.It’s just the most recent attempt the men have made to get the legislation passed. Congress has taken to patching the AMT one year at a time -- six years in a row -- usually by increasing the exemption amount. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, in 2007 the patch will cost about $50 billion and hold the number of affected taxpayers at close to the 4 million taxpayers affected this year. Without a patch, about 23 million households would have been affected by the AMT.

Upstate New York’s Bonadio Group announced that it has merged with Loguidice and Kamide CPAs PLLC, an accounting and tax service firm located in Syracuse, N.Y.

The card was not all that unusual. "With all the best wishes for the New Year." But the postmark was.

Rep. Barney Frank said that wage inequality among U.S. workers is his No. 1 priority as he prepares to take over chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee this week.In a speech at the National Press Club, Frank, D-Mass., said that he will hold hearings about wages over the next two years in an attempt to address the gap between economic growth and workers' wages.

Two western Massachusetts accounting firms -- Adelson & Co. PC and Moynihan & Kowalczyk PC -- have completed a merger.

A pair of accounting firms located just outside of Providence, R.I., have announced a merger, effective Jan. 1.

Two unmarried taxpayers can exclude gain from the sale of their home -- even though they fail the two-year ownership and use tests of the tax code -- because the primary reason for the sale was an unexpected pregnancy.In a Dec. 29 letter responding to a ruling request, the Internal Revenue Service said that a pregnancy meets the “unforeseen circumstances” exclusion outlined in Section 121(a)(c)(2) of the code.