Tax planning

A group of 45 millionaires has signed a letter to President Obama urging him to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for those earning over $1 million a year.

Warren Buffett said that wealthy people should be paying “a lot more” money in taxes, and that the Bush tax cuts should expire for “people at the high end.”

As 2010 winds to a close, tax and accounting information and software provider CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business, has released a short list of four tax-planning moves for companies to make the most of current federal tax laws.

The Internal Revenue Service failed to ensure that only eligible taxpayers received education credit tax relief that was only supposed to be available to taxpayers in Midwestern disaster areas, according to a new government report.

Continued growth in the do-it-yourself tax prep market, ongoing federal and state e-filing mandates and the Internal Revenue Service's discontinuation of a debt indicator to facilitate refund anticipation loans will affect both preparers and their software providers during next year's filing season.

Where the tax burden falls

The unfinished business awaiting Congress during the lame duck session this month includes the expiring 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, the normal extender items, the estate tax, and, many tax professionals believe, a ban on tax strategy patents.

A bipartisan pair of U.S. senators has written to the co-chairmen of the federal deficit commission asking them to consider raising the gas tax to finance highway construction nationwide.

Payroll and benefits outsourcing provider ADP is nowoffering enhancements in its Taxware Enterprise System with Data Editor - itssales, use, and value added tax system - which includes a hosted version of theproduct.

President Obama and congressional Republicans are laying out their positions more openly on the fate of the expiring Bush tax cuts as they prepare for negotiations later this month.

President Obama urged Republicans in Congress to agree on a compromise on the soon-to-expire tax cuts, even as the prospects for an agreement remained uncertain.

President Obama, chastened by Democratic losses in the midterm elections, said Wednesday he would work with Republican leaders in Congress on the Bush tax cuts and other issues after a “shellacking” in the midterm elections.

Obama administration officials awarded $1 billion in therapeutic discovery project tax credits and grants to nearly 3,000 companies around the country to support promising biomedical research projects.

California voters rejected ballot measures that would legalize and tax marijuana sales, while Washington State voters defeated a proposal to impose a tax on upper-income taxpayers, and Massachusetts voters said no to a ballot question that would have lowered state sales taxes.

Republicans will gain greater leverage in Congress now that they have won control of the House and captured more seats in the Senate, giving them more influence over tax policy and financial regulation.

President Barack Obama reiterated his proposals for cuts in business and individual taxes and called on Republicans and Democrats to work together after the elections.

President Barack Obama visited a Maryland factory Friday and promoted his proposal for allowing businesses to deduct the entire cost of their purchases of new equipment through the end of next year.

Reports have surfaced that the federal debt commission (officially known as the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform) is considering the heretofore unimaginable elimination of popular tax breaks, including deductions on mortgage interest, as part of its report due on December 1.

Suppose the White House budget director abruptly resigned, with precious little explanation given for his departure?

It’s been five years since Connie Mack, as chair of President Bush’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, said that it would “take a fresh look at the existing Tax Code and will formulate options for making the tax system simple, fair and productive.