President Bush has named two former senators to lead a new nine-member bipartisan panel charged with arriving at options to reform the tax code.

H&R Block Inc. announced that Brian L. Nygaard, president and chief executive officer of H&R Block Financial Advisors Inc., has decided to leave the company.

In a move triggered by lawmaker's concerns over the marketing of abusive tax shelters by some accounting firms, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has proposed new rules restricting the ability of accountants to provide tax services to their audit clients.

With the tax law becoming increasingly complex, it is no surprise that there often can be several well-intentioned interpretations of a particular provision. Also no surprise is the expectation of many clients that a fee for planning advice should almost always result in an exponential decrease in overall tax liability.

In a display of bipartisan cooperation, the Senate and the House on Thursday unanimously approved legislation allowing extra time for 2004 deductions for tsunami relief donations, just two days after it was proposed by Senate Finance Committee chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and ranking member Max Baucus, D-Mont.

Taxpayers who misreported their income to snare unjustified Earned Income Tax Credits are draining $2 billion a year from the U.S. Treasury, auditors at the Government Accountability Office told Congress.

After 14 months of negotiations, law firm Jenkens & Gilchrist PC, based here, has agreed to pay $81.55 million in a class-action settlement to put claims related to its tax shelter work behind it.