Finance

Members of Congress have introduced several bills this week to keep student loan interest rates from doubling in July.

An Internal Revenue Service official apologized for what she called the agency’s improper flagging of some anti-tax Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny.

Senate Appropriations Committee chair Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., urged Internal Revenue Service Acting Commissioner Steven T. Miller to do more to keep unscrupulous payroll service providers from cheating small businesses out of unremitted withholding taxes during an IRS budget hearing.

The leaders of Congress’s two main tax committee teamed up Thursday to launch a new Web site and Twitter feed, with the goal of getting input from the American public on tax reform.

CCH has released a new analysis of the Internet sales tax legislation approved by the Senate this week.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ken., has introduced legislation to repeal provisions of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, that he contends undermine the privacy of U.S. citizens.

The Senate has approved legislation requiring online retailers to collect sales taxes from Internet sales, even if they don’t have a physical presence in the state where the customer resides.

Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation has released a report summarizing various provisions of the Tax Code and suggestions that were sent to House Ways and Means Committee working groups tasked with various aspects of tax reform.

The unemployment rate fell a tenth of a percentage point to 7.5 percent, the lowest rate in five years, as employers added 165,000 jobs in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Index above 15,000 points.

The research and advocacy organization Global Financial Integrity is urging Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to allow the Senate to vote on agreements negotiated by the Treasury Department with Switzerland, Luxembourg, Hungary and other countries to implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, in an effort to ferret out tax evaders.

The American Institute of CPAs has sent tax reform recommendations to five of the 11 working groups on the House Ways and Means Committee tasked with studying various aspects of tax reform.

The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on tax reform and residential real estate, considering the effect of changing popular tax breaks like the mortgage interest deduction.

A pair of influential senators have re-introduced legislation to make the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s disciplinary proceedings against auditing and accounting firms public.

Internal Revenue Service Acting Commissioner Steven T. Miller told a congressional panel Thursday that while tax season began with delays caused by the late passage of the fiscal cliff legislation, the rest of the season eventually went smoothly.

A loose coalition of anti-tax activists, direct marketers and financial industry trade groups has a tough task this week in overcoming bipartisan support for letting states impose sales taxes on out-of-state sellers.

Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has decided not to run for re-election in 2014, instead opting to spend the next year and a half focusing on his job as Montana’s senior Senator and chairing the Senate committee in charge of tax policy, as opposed to re-election.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has approved a new standard that provides accounting and financial reporting guidance to state and local governments that offer nonexchange financial guarantees and governments that receive guarantees on their obligations.

Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., introduced a bill Wednesday that would establish a tax on the trading of stocks and other financial products.

A pair of senators have introduced bipartisan legislation aimed at expanding the use of S corporation employee stock ownership plans, or S ESOPs, to encourage more Americans to save for retirement.

The Senate Finance Committee held a hearing Tuesday on moving forward with solutions to tax fraud and tax identity theft as they grappled with an expanding problem that has plagued recent tax seasons.