Finance

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has introduced a bill aimed at repealing the alternative minimum tax and cutting the top corporate tax rate while raising taxes in other areas, including on the salaries of hedge fund and private equity fund managers.

The Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on allowing U.S. companies to use International Financial Reporting Standards.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Congress should stop dithering on passing a fix for the Alternative Minimum Tax.

The House of Representatives has approved a bill that would ban private tax collections, but the bill's prospects remain uncertain in the Senate.

A high-ranking Treasury Department official has warned of the costs of tax-exempt bond financing for projects such as sports stadiums.

Republican presidential candidates debated their tax-lowering credentials at an event sponsored by CNBC, MSNBC and The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday evening.

The push to raise taxes on hedge funds, private equity firms and their managers seems to have stalled for this year in Congress.

The House of Representatives has passed a bill that would provide relief to homeowners facing the threat of taxes on their foreclosed homes in the midst of the subprime mortgage meltdown.

In a vote that may have a wide-ranging effect on the accounting profession, House lawmakers voted 220-175 to overhaul patent rules and place a ban on tax-planning-method patents.HR 1908, the Patent Reform Act of 2007, primarily contains provisions that would make it harder to get patents and harder for companies to be sued for patent infringement. However, it also contains a provision that would protect accounting firms from lawsuits over tax-planning methods.

The deadline for compliance with final Section 409A regulations, scheduled for Dec. 31, 2007, should be extended for a year, according to 92 of the largest law firms in the nation.The new regulations, finalized in April, require deferred-compensation plans to be amended to comply with the Internal Revenue Code.

Three Democratic congressmen have announced plans to draft legislation that would impose a war surtax to pay for operations in Iraq as a way to demonstrate their opposition to the war.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., has proposed a bill that would change the tax treatment of corporate stock option deductions.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., has proposed a 50-cent tax on each gallon of gas in an effort to limit carbon emissions.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez called on the Senate to pass a permanent moratorium on taxes for Internet access and electronic commerce.

The Internal Revenue Service has been called on to develop federal licensing requirements for all paid tax return preparers - an approach that would involve potentially controversial competency rankings to help taxpayers to identify and select tax professionals based on their level of expertise.The proposal was recently placed on the table by the IRS's own Taxpayer Advocacy Panel as part of a laundry list of recommendations for improvements at the tax service.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to implement the bank broker provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D.-Ill., outlined his tax proposals in a speech at the Tax Policy Center in Washington, highlighted by a proposal for a tax cut of between $80 billion and $85 billion, coupled with increases in the capital gains tax.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member of the Committee on Finance, along with two committee members, is urging the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service to take action to ensure that families who lose their homes to foreclosure face more reasonable, accurate tax bills for their home loan debt forgiveness. "Working families who lose their homes are getting hit with huge tax bills," Grassley said. "Some of those bills are unfairly high and even inaccurate. The IRS needs to take steps to ensure the accuracy of the bill in the first place. Then the IRS should offer the taxpayer every opportunity to negotiate the size of the bill and a fair payment plan. The agency has plenty of authority to treat taxpayers reasonably in these situations. It needs to use that authority to serve taxpayers." Grassley and fellow GOP Finance Committee members Sens. Gordon Smith of Oregon and Pat Roberts of Kansas, wrote to the Treasury to urge these changes. "While the Congress considers the president's proposal for relief Americans shouldn't have to wait to get the relief that is needed right now," they wrote. "We strongly urge the Treasury Department to take immediate steps to encourage working families that face the difficulties that the President outlined in his (Aug. 31) speech to submit (and have the Internal Revenue Service accept) offers in compromise that will either eliminate or reduce the taxes that they owe due to cancelled mortgage debt on a primary residence."

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has proposed a series of measures intended to provide tax relief and disaster assistance to farmers and ranchers as part of a revamped farm bill.

Congress held hearings last week on a grab-bag of tax topics, including carried interest, the effect of the Bush administration tax cuts, and the rapidly expanding reach of the alternative minimum tax, but neither of the other two issues is the ticking time bomb that the AMT presents.