Tax planning

Members of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform are set to discuss "return-free" filing, among other things, at their next meeting, slated for May 17.

RIA, a provider of tax compliance software and research, has partnered with SurePrep, a tax productivity and outsourcing concern to sell its proprietary SurePrep Express to RIA GoSystem clients.

MCI agreed to pay $100 million in cash to the state of Mississippi for back taxes the state claimed were owed by the company's predecessor, WorldCom.

A crackdown on abusive tax shelters that includes codifying the economic substance doctrine would create legal booby traps for small businesses and open the door for new abuses by unscrupulous tax shelter promoters, the American Institute of CPAs warned Congress.

H&R Block and HSBC Taxpayer Financial Services Inc. reached a tentative agreement to settle a 1998 Chicago class-action lawsuit related to refund anticipation loans.

With two dozen deals currently in the pipeline, business advisory and financial services provider Fiducial says that acquisitions will be the main engine of its growth over the next three years.

STF Services Corp. president Charles F. Ter Bush has left the Syracuse, N.Y.-based tax forms company to join LexisNexis as vice president for the tax and accounting market segment.

A newly issued revenue procedure, Rev. Proc. 2005-28, makes it easier for some taxpayers to adopt a simpler method of allocating and apportioning interest expenses in determining their net U.S. and foreign-source income for foreign tax credit purposes.

H&R Block Inc. reported total tax prep and related fees through April 15 of $2.4 billion -- up 7.3 percent over last year.

The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform will hold its eighth meeting this week, said the body's chairman and vice-chairman, senators Connie Mack and John Breaux.

Senate Finance Committee leaders Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Max Baucus, D-Mont., will introduce legislation early next week to crack down on life insurance contract abuses that inappropriately afford benefits to private investors that would not otherwise be available without the involvement of a charity.

In light of recent changes to the rules that guide practitoner conduct, the Internal Revenue Service will host a Webcast next week focusing on the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility and Circular 230.

The Internal Revenue Service is hosting a number of seminars for tax practitioners on the latest information on the agency's policies and programs.

The Internal Revenue Service is requesting membership nominations for the Information Reporting Program Advisory Committee, a body that provides recommendations to IRS leaders on information reporting and administration issues.

The Internal Revenue Service has selected seven new members for the Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Entities, a formal body of external stakeholders in the specialized areas of tax-exempt organizations, employee retirement plans, tax-exempt bonds, and federal, state, local and Indian tribal governments.

Not surprisingly, the National Taxpayer's Union sees nothing but downside to the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement.

The Internal Revenue Service's tough stance on settling the "Son of Boss" tax shelters matches the call by the IRS Oversight Board for increased compliance funding, as well as the tax gap findings of the National Research Program. Together, they signal a sea change from the kinder, gentler, post-1998 hearings IRS.

Washington - The Winter 2004-2005 Statistics of Income Bulletin, a quarterly compilation of information on various topics from federal tax returns and other documents, has been released by the Internal Revenue Service.

It's official: Taxpayers who file paper returns are in the minority, the Internal Revenue Service reported.

In a move that promises to have far-reaching consequences for global operations and international tax compliance, the Supreme Court ruled that defendants who evaded Canadian taxes by smuggling large quantities of liquor into Canada from the United States could be prosecuted in the U.S. under federal wire fraud laws.