Tax forms from the federal government and many states may be delayed in the aftermath of the fiscal cliff legislation, one of the largest tax preparation chains warned.

Thomson Reuters has introduced a new system to help foreign financial firms comply with the requirements of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued proposed regulations to create a new taxpayer identifying number known as the IRS Truncated Taxpayer Identification Number, or TTIN, that can be used instead of a Social Security number in response to the growing problem of identity theft-related tax fraud.

President Barack Obama signed the legislation that enacts a last-minute budget deal and averts income tax increases for most U.S. workers, marking an end to a yearlong impasse.

Even though President Obama indicated only last Friday that the fiscal cliff deal likely to be produced by the January 1 deadline would be a basic package, lawmakers managed to come out with a surprisingly comprehensive set of tax provisions, some with long-lasting effects.

Seems like a timesaver in tax season: Scan all documents and let software auto-fill information from clients’ forms. Selecting scanners, however, means gambling that a hardware investment will, in fact, pay off, and that can mean carefully examining your client base and information flow.

The House passed a deal to avert an income tax rate increase on middle-class families on Tuesday night, following a New Year’s Eve vote by the Senate, sending the bill to President Obama for his signature.