Finance

President Obama and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., pressed House Republicans on Thursday to agree to a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, even as Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, insisted he was ready to negotiate.

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, has come under increasing pressure to pass a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut.

Accountants and tax practitioners had a busy time this past year keeping up with all the changes in the profession. Here’s our annual list of the top stories in the past year that kept our readers coming to the site for the latest developments:

House Republicans blocked the Senate’s two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and emergency unemployment benefits on Tuesday, setting up a confrontation between the two chambers.

The Senate has passed a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, but House Republican leaders and some Democrats balked at the short-term extension.

Congressional leaders in both parties signaled they were working on a deal to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits for at least two months, while also agreeing on a spending bill that would avert a government shutdown.

New information released Wednesday on the holdings of U.S.-based multinational corporations is adding fresh ammunition to the dispute over whether companies should be given a tax holiday on repatriated foreign profits.

The tax plan advanced by Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich would have the effect of adding over $1 trillion to the federal deficit in a single year and give the overwhelming share of tax benefits to those at the upper end of the income scale.

House Republicans have passed an extension of the payroll tax cut for another year, but Senate Democrats have vowed to defeat the bill when it comes up for a vote Wednesday.

A new study has cast doubt on claims from legislators and lobbyists that a tax holiday for multinational corporations on their repatriated foreign earnings would spark an economic revival in the U.S.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers are seeking to make sure an extension of the deduction for state and local sales tax payments is included in the tax extenders package that is expected to come before Congress early next year.

House Republicans introduced their version of a payroll tax cut extension bill on Friday, a day after competing Republican and Democratic versions of payroll tax cut legislation failed for the second time to advance in the Senate.

Former U.S. Senator and New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine faced questions from a skeptical congressional panel Thursday over his role in the collapse of MF Global and the disappearance of $1.2 billion from customer accounts.

The Internal Revenue Service is preparing a legislative proposal for Congress to expand its tax levy authority to include additional income sources, such as rental income and non-employee compensation.

Nearly half of senior executives favor changing how corporate income earned outside the United States is taxed, according to a new survey, although many don’t expect much progress on the issue of corporate tax reform before the 2012 elections.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has proposed that state and local governments should include five-year projections of their cash inflows and outflows, and financial obligations, to supplement their financial statements.

The Senate and the House’s tax-writing committees held a rare joint hearing on reforming the tax treatment of financial products such as derivatives.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., offered Monday to compromise on how to pay for the payroll tax cut extension in an effort to convince more Republican lawmakers to vote for the bill.

Online sales tax collections would help states manage their budget problems, but could impose heavy burdens on small online merchants, executives from Internet and brick-and-mortar businesses told a congressional committee.

The Internal Revenue Service has reportedly backed away from plans to heavily penalize U.S. citizens and dual citizens living in Canada who may not have paid all of their taxes.