Tax

Sage North America has sold its tax compliance services business and enterprise-level customer base to Empower Corp.

A UBS executive told a congressional committee probing tax shelter abuses that approximately 47,000 U.S. customers had accounts with the Swiss bank, but declined to release the names of the vast majority of them.

If your mortgage debt is partly or entirely forgiven during tax years 2007 – 2012, you may be able to claim special tax relief and exclude the debt forgiveness income, said the IRS.

Sabrix has debuted Taxcast, an online, interactive tool to help businesses stay on top of the latest sales and use tax obligations from 13,253 U.S. taxing jurisdictions.

One third of public companies did not satisfy the minimum requirements of disclosure of their tax reserves last year as required by new rules put in place by the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

American International Group, which is receiving between $152 billion and $163 billion so far in taxpayer bailout funds, has sued the federal government to recover over $306 million for 1997 taxes, penalties and interest that the insurance company claims it was illegally charged.

Taxpayers will file 240 million federal tax returns and supplemental documents during calendar year 2009, according to projections from the IRS Office of Research, but that’s down 4.3 percent from estimated return filings of 250.8 million for 2008.

The Internal Revenue Service said it has approximately $1.3 billion in unclaimed refunds waiting for people who did not file a federal income tax return for 2005.

Ron Kirk, the Obama administration’s nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, has agreed to pay $9,975 in back taxes he owed on $37,750 in speaking fees.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner explained the Obama administration’s budget and tax plans, and his handling of the financial industry bailout, to wary lawmakers in a congressional hearing.