The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government issued a report detailing a 13.3 percent average increase in state tax revenues across the country. The report, "State Revenue Growth Continues in Most States," compared revenues from the second quarter of 2005 to the same period in 2004. The growth percentage was the fastest since 1991, when the public policy research arm of the State University of New York began tracking state revenues."The growth in overall collections from final settlements is generally stronger than states had anticipated," said senior policy analyst Nicholas Jenny, in a statement. "It's now getting back into the range of the growth in final settlements states experienced regularly from the mid-1990s through 2001. This favorable 'April surprise' has put many states in a budget surplus position."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed several bills that would have strengthened the enforcement of business tax laws in California.

Complying with the federal tax code costs American taxpayers at least $100 billion annually, and lost economic efficiency associated with the tax system may top half a trillion dollars, auditors for the Government Accountability Office told Congress.In a report likely to add fuel to the campaign for an easy-to-administer national consumption tax, the GAO said that the lowest available estimates of the cost of complying with federal income, payroll and excise taxes is $107 billion - a whopping 1 percent of the nation's total gross domestic product. Other studies suggest that compliance costs may be 50 percent higher than these estimates.

A federal prosecutor asked a Los Angeles judge to deny bail to a former KPMG partner indicted in the government's tax shelter fraud case, calling him a flight risk.

With the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform due to report Nov. 1, we asked industry leaders, many who made Accounting Today's recently released 2005 Top 100 Most Influential People list, to tell us what sort of tax system they would create.

Two proposals for tax reform took definitive shape at the latest meeting of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. The panel's final report is due Nov. 1.

The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, has established a new Web page dedicated to the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, providing a number of links to relevant research and testimony.