The Internal Revenue Service has appointed Tim Hubbs, president and CEO of Drake Software, as the chairman of its Electronic Tax Advisory Committee.

Notice 2008-1 provides rules under which a 2 percent shareholder/employee in an S corporation is entitled to the deduction under Section 162(l) for accident and health insurance premiums paid or reimbursed by the S corporation and included in a shareholder or employee's gross income.

Igor Olenicoff, a billionaire industrial and commercial property developer, has pleaded guilty to filing a false 2002 tax return and paid $52 million in back taxes and penalties in an effort to stay out of jail.

While friends and family are more concerned with the holidays at hand, tax practitioners are taking last-minute steps to ensure that they and their clients have a successful tax season.Training people to be able to staff the offices properly is key for Peoples Income Tax Inc., said chief executive Charles McCabe. "There just isn't a supply of qualified preparers out there who are willing to work for three months. And if someone is available, you have to ask why they are available - you don't want to hire someone else's problem."

FASB DELAYS FIN 48 FOR PRIVATE COS.Norwalk, Conn. - The Financial Accounting Standards Board has decided to defer the effective date for FASB Interpretation No. 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes, for nonpublic entities.

The House has voted to approve a $78 billion bill that would provide a temporary fix to prevent the alternative minimum tax from spreading to about 23 million more taxpayers this coming tax season.Congress was under pressure to pass an AMT fix in time to allow the Internal Revenue Service to produce the necessary tax forms without delaying processing and refunds. However, in a sign of the controversy over provisions to raise taxes on some high-income taxpayers and close loopholes, no Republicans voted for the bill and eight Democrats voted against it.

The current wrangling over the alternative minimum tax is a symptom of the larger problems with having a Tax Code built on patchwork over nearly a century, to the point that it resembles a Rube Goldberg contraption, according to David A. Lifson, president of the New York State Society of CPAs and a co-managing partner at New York-based Hays & Co. LLP.Lifson, who recently testified before the Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee on the AMT, also chaired the NYSSCPA Committee on Tax Reform that issued a comprehensive proposal to revise the current tax system.