Practice Management

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced two initiatives aimed at simplifying the way small businesses, individual taxpayers and tax preparers file and pay their federal taxes.

The Government Accountability Office says that the performance of the Internal Revenue Service's Offers in Compromise program has been mixed, and suggests that a combination of better management information and simplification could improve it.

Burr, Pilger & Mayer LLP, a regional accounting firms in the Bay Area, has merged in San Jose firm Brach, Neal, Daney & Spence LLP.

Several Republican members of Congress forwarded constituents' letters to the Internal Revenue Service claiming the NAACP had veered into political advocacy, a potential violation of the civil rights group's tax-exempt status.

In a pair of private letter rulings, the Internal Revenue Service said that it would allow a taxpayer to make a late election, agreeing that the taxpayer had relied on tax prep software that didn't adequately handle a tax provision.

While the extension of the reduced rates on capital gains and dividends, alternative minimum tax relief, and the continuation of enhanced Section 179 expensing have received the most publicity, there are a host of other changes in the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005.

In a political victory for Republicans, President Bush signed the sixth tax cut in the past six years yesterday, in a Rose Garden ceremony.

Hispanics are less likely than non-Hispanics to say that they owe money to the Internal Revenue Service for 2005 (14 percent versus 22 percent) and they are more likely than non-Hispanics to report having received a refund for 2004 (73 percent versus 62 percent), according to poll results released by Hispanic market research firm Encuesta Inc.

A federal judge has sentenced Richard Hatch, who won the first season of the CBS reality show "Survivor," to 51 months in prison for tax evasion.

The Internal Revenue Service said that it plans to revoke the tax-exempt status of the 41 credit counseling agencies it has audited as part of a crackdown on the industry's practices.