Practice Management

Congress has begun to focus in on reforms for the nation's health care tax policy -- a move that could impact hundreds of billions of dollars a year in cherished tax breaks for individuals and employers.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued guidance describing 26 frivolous arguments that taxpayers should avoid when filing their returns.

CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business and a provider of tax and accounting law, software and services, bolstered its paperless workflow process with the acquisition of a pair of automation tools from Brandenton, Fla.-based DocuMatters.

CPA and business advisory firm Hill, Barth and King, has merged in Presque Isle Capital Management with its financial planning unit HBK Sorce Advisory LLC.

How well do you manage the client management process?It's a question I often ask clients I work with. While most firms pay attention to various aspects of the process, many firms fail to understand that it is an interrelated process, and hence fail to properly manage the entire process. I strongly believe that the ultimate success of your firm is determined by how well you manage the client management process.

IRS REQUESTS $10.6B BUDGET FOR 2007: The Internal Revenue Service requested a budget of $10.6 billion for the 2007 fiscal year, an increase of 1.4 percent from the current year's budget. Nearly $10.6 billion would come from direct appropriations through the Treasury Department. An additional $135 million would come from the IRS's new user fee revenue, for a total operating level of $10.7 billion.Among the IRS operations receiving more funding would be enforcement activities and taxpayer services. Enforcement has proposed funding at nearly $7 billion, a 2 percent increase from the 2006 enacted levels; taxpayer services has proposed funding at more than $3.5 billion, a 1.4 percent increase from 2006.

There's a new area of controversy at the Internal Revenue Service, and it surrounds the recently released 2005 annual report from the Taxpayer Advocate Service -the independent organization within the IRS designated as the liaison between the IRS and taxpayers with problems.While the Taxpayer Advocate is required to identify at least 20 serious problems in her annual report, particular attention has been given to one topic in this year's report: the IRS's Criminal Investigation Questionable Refund Program.

While the Roth 401(k) plan option was enacted back in 2001 and has been available since January 1 of this year, advice over whether to jump on the Roth 401(k) bandwagon remains hard to give.Detailed rules on contributions, operations and distributions for Roth 401(k) plans have been slow in coming. Proposed reliance regulations on contributions weren't released until this past December; reliance regs on distributions weren't out until January.

Oracle, a high-volume provider of business software, based here, has validated the integration between compliance software Taxware Enterprise Version 4.3 and Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Version 8.9.Taxware's software, a sales and use tax and value-added tax calculation application, now integrates with Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management, including payables, and Supply Chain Management components, including order management, billing and purchasing.

TimePlus Payroll Inc., a provider of payroll, tax filing and benefit services, announced the acquisition of Los Angeles-based Payroll Perfect Inc.Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.