Practice management

At least 61 percent of sole proprietor companies are underreporting their net business income, but a small proportion of them account for the bulk of understated taxes, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

Accounting firm Friedman, Cohen, Taubman & Co. LLC has hooked up with Engineered Tax Services to provide cost segregation services to clients who own or invest in commercial and residential rental properties.

Just recently, I was reading an online article in the East Bay Business Times, a California business-to-business newspaper, and I noticed a very effective ad for the San Ramon Valley Conference Center. It linked me to www.sanramonvalleyconferencecenter.com, the Web site for the conference site, where I was able to take a virtual tour of the facilities.

Detroit-area accounting firm Maddox Ungar Silberstein PLLC is expanding from its Bingham Farms office and opening an office in Ann Arbor.

Accounting firm Goldstein, Karlewicz & Goldstein has joined AGN International, an association of independent CPA, accounting and consulting firms.

The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Policy have released a "priority guidance plan" for 2007-2008, outlining the 303 projects they plan to complete through June 2008.

A federal court has permanently barred a Queensbury, N.Y., man, Robert L. Schulz, and his organizations, We the People Congress and We the People Foundation, from promoting a tax scheme that encouraged businesses to stop withholding taxes from their employees' wages.

President Bush said he is mulling the possibility of simplifying the corporate tax system, as long as the changes don't affect the amount of taxes the government collects.

The Internal Revenue Service wants teachers to know that a recent tax law change won't affect the way their tax is paid in the upcoming school year.

Accounting firm Bush, Ramlow & Shore is joining Firm Foundation, a recently established association for CPA firms that have approximately 10 to 30 full-time employees.

Workstream introduced an on-demand compensation-planning system, Workstream Compensation Professional, aimed at midsized companies.

Accounting firm Armanino McKenna LLP has formed a division that will act as a media-consulting firm under the leadership of a former newspaper publisher.

One of the more intriguing ideas in the energy bill that the House passed over the weekend was that of doing a "carbon audit" of the U.S. Tax Code. Exactly how Congress proposes to conduct such an audit is another matter.

Longstanding weaknesses in the financial systems of government agencies pose a "formidable challenge," according to a report released by the Government Accountability Office.

The Internal Revenue Service said that owners of thousands of Ford, Toyota and Lexus hybrid vehicles can continue to claim the Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit, but the phase-out period for claiming the credit has already begun for Toyota and Lexus owners because of strong sales of the company's hybrids.

Sixty percent of Internal Revenue Service employees were duped into giving control of their passwords to unauthorized callers, according to an inspection report that found lingering problems with computer security years after they were supposed to have been corrected.

The Internal Revenue Service has released drafts of the updated income tax forms for corporations and partnerships, and is asking for comments before it finalizes the changes for tax year 2008 and beyond.

PRIVATE COLLECTION PROGRAM SURVIVES HOUSE VOTEBy a margin of 240-179, House lawmakers approved funding for the Internal Revenue

It is always difficult to get the Supreme Court to review a case, but this seems especially true for tax cases. The recent court term just ended proved to be no exception. Of several cases practitioners were hoping that the court would accept, only one received a grant of certiorari in the closing days of the term.It is the decisions for which the court grants certiorari where the fight, and the hope, goes on. It is, however, in the cases with respect to which certiorari is denied where taxpayers must finally face the facts or explore other remedies.

Fewer taxpayers took advantage of the Internal Revenue Service's free electronic tax return filing service in 2007 than in previous years, according to a new audit report released by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.Moreover, the audit identified multiple calculation errors made by the commercial software of Free File Alliance firms.