Tax

More than two-thirds of the 100-plus CPAs present at a New York State Society of CPAs breakfast indicated they had clients affected by the Bernard Madoff scheme. For investors who need funds soon, the IRS may be the best bet.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued information to help employers claim credit for the COBRA medical premiums they pay for former employees under provisions of the recently passed stimulus bill.

Swiss bank UBS has been sued by a group of wealthy U.S. account holders who want to keep their identities and accounts from being revealed to the Internal Revenue Service.

Children with investment income may have part or all of this income taxed at their parent’s tax rate rather than at the child’s rate, according to the IRS.

A former tax return preparer who worked from an office at a local gym has been sentenced to 24 months in prison for preparing false tax returns for customers.

During his Fiscal Responsibility Summit on Monday, President Barack Obama discussed the possibility of lowering the statutory corporate tax rate while also closing tax loopholes that allow companies to reduce taxes.

This past year has produced an unprecedented amount of new tax legislation and regulations affecting preparers and taxpayers.

Congressional leaders are looking to clamp down on offshore tax havens after a Government Accountability Office report found that 83 of the 100 largest publicly traded U.S. corporations have subsidiaries in jurisdictions listed as tax havens or financial privacy jurisdictions, while 63 of the 100 largest publicly traded federal contractors reported having subsidiaries in such jurisdictions.

When every dollar counts a bit more dearly, a greater number of taxpayers are taking a closer look at ways to improve cash flow. Increasing (or at least accelerating) tax refunds for past years while lowering estimated tax and withholding payments for this year are two areas of growing interest.On the refund side of the ledger, a variety of elections and decisions still to be made on 2008 returns can affect the size of a refund, either of 2008 tax payments or of prior years' under loss-carryback rules. Accelerating refunds, whether or not they are already set in stone, also can improve a taxpayer's immediate cash flow.

The Internal Revenue Service has published new tax-withholding tables as a result of the economic stimulus bill that should give most workers a bigger paycheck this spring.