Tax

The Illinois CPA Society recently released the results of its fifth annual “Accounting Women: 2007 Survey on the Role of Women in CPA Firms.”The survey found only slight shifts in hiring and retention patterns from the results of prior years -- again concluding that women are still underrepresented in key leadership positions.

The Free File Alliance has sent a letter to the Senate Finance Committee, expressing concerns about a proposed government-funded Web portal that the alliance says is aimed at eventually providing tax preparation and e-filing services.

The supplemental budget legislation signed into law on May 25 did more than just give the green light to funding for the ongoing war effort in the Middle East.

Two bills circulating on Capitol Hill are looking at different ways to generate tax revenue from the Internet.

A U.S. appeals court told the judge overseeing the KPMG tax shelter cause that if he believes federal prosecutors violated the rights of former KPMG employees he should toss the entire case.

The Internal Revenue Service announced that the commissioners of the Australian, Canadian, U.K., and U.S. tax administrations will open a second office of the Joint International Tax Shelter Information Center in London this fall.The commissioners have said that exchanging information in real-time is making a significant difference to the complex task of tracking tax avoidance and abusive cross-border transactions. In recent months, center members have identified and challenged the following fraudulent arrangements:

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson announced that the Internal Revenue Service has awarded almost $8 million in matching grants to Low-Income Taxpayer Clinics for the 2007 grant cycle.

Federal prosecutors won’t pursue the Texas law firm of Sidley Austin LLP for its part in signing off on sketchy tax shelter structures.

There’s no real question that something needs to be done about the fate of the alternative minimum tax.

A federal court in Portland, Ore., sentenced a former Oregon chemical company executive to serve 18 months in prison and pay a $50,000 criminal fine following his conviction on two counts of filing false federal income tax returns.Trevor Smith, the former vice president of sales for Raisio Western North America, was convicted in March on charges of filing false returns for the 1999 and 2000 tax years. While employed at Raisio, federal prosecutors said that Smith received approximately $350,000 in kickback payments from the former general manager of Georgia-based Chemical Products Technologies. Those payments were related to Raisio’s purchases of a pulping additive used to increase pulp yield, and were not claimed by Smith on his returns.