Finance

The Internal Revenue Service needs to improve oversight of its process for interpreting tax laws through its published guidance program, according to a new audit publicly released today by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The audit, "The Public Guidance Program Needs Additional Controls to Minimize Risks and Increase Public Awareness," examined the process by which the IRS Office of Chief Counsel develops tax guidance, including a pilot guidance program to request and evaluate public submissions before considering changes to existing regulations. The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee requested the review after news articles questioned whether the pilot program was putting special interest before the public's interests when developing tax guidance. "We believe the pilot program does not present an increased risk of influence by special interest groups in the selection of guidance projects," TIGTA Inspector General J. Russell George said. "The pilot program did not directly create tax guidance or circumvent existing internal controls." "Although Counsel considers ideas from a wide variety of sources when selecting guidance projects for its annual business plan, it does not track all open projects on the business plan, which could lead to an increased risk of untimely actions, less management oversight, and less public awareness," George added. The audit makes seven recommendations to IRS, including expanding written procedures for developing and monitoring the guidance business plan, issuing more frequent updates to and establishing a reasonable expectation in the Priority Guidance Plan, and improving recordkeeping.

The Internal Revenue Service's Business Systems Modernization, a $200 million-plus effort to upgrade the service's systems and processes, is moving ahead, but several of the project's milestones have been riddled by completion delays and cost overruns, the Government Accountability Office said. Specifically, the GAO cited the Customer Account Data Engine -- the new taxpayer information database -- as exceeding its planned schedule by 66 percent and experiencing a 15 percent cost increase; a companion project to the CADE incurred a 153 percent cost overrun; and the modernized e-file program experienced a 41 percent schedule delay.

The House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee plans to hold a hearing on the 2008 tax-filing season, Internal Revenue Service operations, fiscal year 2009 budget proposals and the IRS National Taxpayer Advocate's annual report.

The American Institute of CPAs has ramped up its mobility efforts to allow CPAs to practice in other states, with mobility bills enacted now in 12 states and legislation pending in 22 other states.

The House Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures held a hearing to examine whether there is a need for a more uniform treatment of various derivative structures.

A House subcommittee plans to conduct a hearing into the tax treatment of derivatives next week.

The House has again passed an energy tax bill that would increase taxes on major oil and gas producers by $18 billion while providing incentives for renewable energy.

House Democrats plan to reintroduce a bill this week that would shift tax breaks from oil and gas to renewable energy sources.

While Democrats and Republicans slug it out on the campaign trail, there's one issue of deep concern to accountants that all of the 2008 presidential candidates agree on: the need for reform of the federal tax system.That is where the consensus ends, however. None of the contenders agree on what changes are needed in the Tax Code, or even what constitutes reform. Adding to the confusion, at least some of the candidates have tailored their tax reform positions to their audience -- favoring one course of action while on the campaign trail, but voting the opposite way in Congress.

In a deal that lawmakers and the White House hope will help jumpstart a wheezing economy, leaders on both sides of the aisle agreed on a $150 billion economic stimulus plan that would hand most taxpayers rebate checks of between $600 and $1,200.

The Congressional Budget Office has issued a report on the deductibility of state and local income taxes, looking at the benefits and drawbacks of the system.

Senator Jack Reed, D-R.I., has written letters to the heads of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board asking how to improve the transparency of the types of assets linked to subprime mortgages.

The House Committee on Small Business held a hearing on business activity taxes and their impact on small businesses.

With Democrats running both Houses of Congress, the normally Republican-leaning political fundraisers for the accounting profession are starting to tilt to the left.A new Accounting Today analysis of campaign contributions to congressional candidates by the industry's political action committee fundraising groups confirmed a distinct shift toward Democrats amid the 2008 primary election season.

Unreported income from the cash economy and late-year Tax Code changes are the focus of the first of this year's two reports to Congress by National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson.In her report, Olson proposed a comprehensive strategy to address tax noncompliance in the cash economy, which accounts for the largest portion of the tax gap. The report identifies the lack of progress in addressing cash economy noncompliance as a most serious problem.

President Bush said he would sign into law the economic stimulus package passed by Congress.

A survey of leading corporate tax executives predicts that taxes will not be a major issue in Congress in 2008, apart from the one-year alternative minimum tax patch and the one-year extenders package.

The Senate and the House have passed an economic stimulus package that adds tax rebates for 20 million senior citizens and 250,000 disabled veterans to a package passed by the House last week.

The White House has issued its budget for the coming year, and as usual it is already drawing complaints.

GAO Comptroller General David Walker, who has spent the last three years on a "Fiscal Wake-Up Tour," again reiterated his agency's warning that the country is on an "imprudent and unsustainable fiscal path," while stressing the need for bi-partisan cooperation and the courage to make tough choices for the longer term. Walker, who has traveled to some 25 states on his tour, said simulations by the GAO and the Congressional Budget Office show that despite a three-year decline in the budget deficit, the U.S. faces "large and growing structural deficits driven primarily by rising health care costs and known demographic trends." The auditor general pointed out that the first wave of Baby Boomers has already filed for early Social Security retirement benefits -- and will be eligible for Medicare in just three years. Walker said rapidly rising health care costs are not simply a federal budget problem, but rather the No. 1 challenge to the U.S. and that the problem calls "for us as a nation to fundamentally rethink how we define, deliver, and finance health care in both the public and the private sectors." Walker said "While Congress and the administration are focused on the need for a short-term fiscal stimulus, our long-term challenge increases the importance of careful design of any stimulus package. It should be timely, targeted and temporary, while at the same time creating a capable and credible commission to make recommendations to the next Congress and the next president for action on our longer-range and looming fiscal imbalance."