Finance

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said Wednesday that congressional Republicans and the Obama administration are too far apart on individual tax reform but could reach an agreement on business tax reform.

The latest attempt to make the biggest change to the U.S. tax code in 29 years isn’t just an exercise, the top Senate Republican tax-law writer said.

President Obama urged the Republican-dominated Congress to move ahead on tax reform to lower taxes on middle-class families during his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.

A group of Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate have introduced legislation to discourage U.S. corporations from merging with overseas companies to lower their tax bills in a strategy known as inversion that changes the company’s tax domicile.

President Barack Obama is proposing new taxes on the wealthiest Americans that would limit their profits from investments and make it harder for them to pass assets to heirs.

Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee have formed five bipartisan working groups with the goal of analyzing the tax code and developing policy recommendations for comprehensive tax reform.

The House voted Wednesday to approve legislation rolling back a variety of financial regulations on business, including a requirement for companies with less than $250 million in annual revenue to file their financials in Extensible Business Reporting Language format with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The latest plan in Congress to cut business tax rates faces a major obstacle: U.S. businesses.

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson released her 2014 Annual Report to Congress, which expresses concern that taxpayers this year are likely to receive the worst levels of taxpayer service since 2001 when the IRS implemented its current performance measures.

The Internal Revenue Service is closing the last of its overseas taxpayer-assistance centers, saying that years of budget cuts have forced it to end a popular program designed to help U.S. citizens living or traveling abroad.

A pair of Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate have re-introduced legislation aimed at preventing the abuse of offshore tax havens by multinational companies.

Congressman Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., is introducing legislation to provide a “Paycheck Bonus Tax Credit” of $1,000 for every worker, which would be paid for with taxes on financial trading.

In his weekly address on Saturday, July 26, 2014, President Obama criticized large corporations that employ tax inversion strategies saying, “They’re keeping most of their business inside the United States, but they’re basically renouncing their citizenship and declaring that they’re based somewhere else, just to avoid paying their fair share.”

The House fell only a few votes short of rolling back a requirement for companies with annual revenue below $250 million from filing their financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the data-tagged Extensible Business Reporting Language format.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 252,000 in December, and the unemployment rate declined two-tenths of a percentage point to 5.6 percent. While job gains occurred in professional and business services, along with other industries such as construction, food services and drinking places, health care, and manufacturing, December's job losses in accounting and bookkeeping offset the gains in November.

Two Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have introduced legislation to regulate paid tax preparers in response to the federal court decision that found the Internal Revenue Service had exceeded its statutory authority in regulating preparers.

Large employers are increasingly putting an end to their most generous health-care coverage as a tax on “Cadillac” insurance plans looms closer under Obamacare.

The Treasury Department and the Department of Health and Human Services are getting ready for the 2015 tax-filing season and the onslaught of questions they anticipate about the Affordable Care Act.

The House of Representatives passed the first piece of legislation of the 114th Congress on Wednesday, the Hire More Heroes Act of 2015 (H.R. 22), with overwhelming bipartisan support.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to make it easier to reduce taxes, passing a rule on the first day of the new session to let lawmakers assume that lower levies boost the economy and cover some of their own budgetary costs.