Tax practice

A group of 61 members of Congress has written to President Bush asking him to suspend rules that require senior citizens to withdraw money from their severely depleted retirement accounts by the end of the year.

The Internal Revenue Service is proposing temporary regulations on foreign base company sales income.

The Internal Revenue Service has finalized the revised Form 990 and 990-EZ information returns that tax-exempt organizations will need to file next year.

Lawmakers have passed more than 100 new tax law changes that could help millions of individual taxpayers save money on their taxes this coming season.

The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department have decided against changing a rule that requires retirees to withdraw a minimum distribution from their retirement savings accounts by the end of 2008.

The Internal Revenue Service collected about $3 billion less in revenue from audits this year after assigning staff to work on processing economic stimulus payments.

The Internal Revenue Service is changing its lockbox payment addresses in five states for individual taxpayers and 23 states for business taxpayers in the New Year.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued proposed regulations that provide rules for assessing penalties against tax advisors who fail to file a true and complete tax return on a timely basis.

President-elect Barack Obama has named venture capitalist Karen Mills to lead the Small Business Administration, drawing fire from one small business group.

A Florida man has been convicted of hiring a hit man to murder an Internal Revenue Service employee who was auditing his taxes.

President-elect Barack Obama has named Mary Schapiro as the next chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, replacing Christopher Cox.

The Internal Revenue Service plans to make it easier for financially troubled homeowners to avoid federal tax liens that block them from selling their homes or refinancing their mortgages.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued new guidance on implementing the recently amended tax return preparer penalty, which punishes tax preparers for taking "unreasonable positions" on tax liabilities.

Leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee wrote to President-elect Barack Obama asking him to end the Internal Revenue Service's private debt collection service.

If you haven’t already, you might shortly be asked, “What are the tax implications of riding a bicycle to work?” And your answer will be for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2008, under Section 132(f)(5)(F)(i) a ”qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement fringe benefit” will be considered a qualified transportation fringe benefit.

In a review of Internal Revenue Service efforts to determine whether charitable and non-profit organizations are being used to divert funds to support terrorist activities, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration suggested a number of steps the Criminal Investigation Division could take to improve counterterrorism efforts.

CCH SFS BUYS INTELLITAX

On Thursday, Congress passed a waiver of the minimum distribution rule for 2009, but not for 2008, for employer-provided qualified retirement plans and individual retirement accounts and annuities in H.R. 7327, the Worker, Retiree, and Employer Recovery Act of 2008. President Bush is expected to quickly sign it.The Treasury Department is studying whether to provide relief with regard to 2008 minimum distributions.

The Internal Revenue Service announced that the interest rates for the calendar quarter beginning Jan. 1, 2009, will drop by one percentage point. The new rates, as laid out in Revenue Ruling 2008-54 will be: -- 5 percent for overpayments (4 percent in the case of a corporation);-- 5 percent for underpayments;-- 7 percent for large corporate underpayments; and,-- 2.5 percent for the portion of a corporate overpayment exceeding $10,000.Under the Internal Revenue Code, the rate of interest is determined on a quarterly basis, based on the federal short-term rate. The most recent rates were computed from the federal short-term rate during October 2008 to take effect Nov. 1, 2008, based on daily compounding.

A completely revised Form 990 will require an overhaul of internal policies and procedures for most tax-exempt organizations, according to Joyce Underwood, director of nonprofit taxation at BDO Seidman's Institute for Nonprofit Excellence.