Tax planning

Congress’s two tax-writing committees convened a rare joint hearing Wednesday to consider whether the Tax Code is providing too many incentives for accumulating debt as opposed to equity.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and several other senators have introduced a bill to close offshore tax loopholes and strengthen offshore tax enforcement.

Amazon.com is trying to get a referendum on the California ballot to get the recently enacted online sales tax law reversed.

Congressman John Tierney, D-Mass., has introduced a bill that would eliminate about 27 different tax expenditures, including tax breaks for energy companies.

President Obama challenged Republicans on Monday to offer him their tax reform proposals for resolving the debt ceiling dilemma as he pushed for a deal that the two parties could agree to before the August 2 deadline on raising the debt limit.

A bipartisan pair of lawmakers have introduced a bill that aims to ensure better tax compliance on the part of professional employer organizations and protect small businesses.

The Internal Revenue Service has been updating its assessment of the extent to which underreported employment taxes are contributing to the tax gap, but it may not be using the right methodology to revise its numbers.

A bipartisan pair of senators have announced a compromise on ending the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit at the end of this month.

President Obama took to Twitter for the White House’s first-ever Twitter Town Hall, answering questions from his “tweeps” about taxes, the economy and other subjects.

President Barack Obama plans to meet with congressional leaders on Thursday to try to strike an agreement on raising the debt ceiling through a combination of spending cuts and revenue increases.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., offered 18 proposals to cut $1.29 trillion from the federal budget deficit over 10 years, including closing corporate tax loopholes and eliminating special tax breaks for wealthy Americans and big companies.

President Obama used his weekly address to say it was necessary to raise taxes on the wealthy to help close the budget deficit.

IMGCAP(1)]Accountants, insurance professionals and others need to be careful that they don’t become what the IRS calls material advisors.

PDI Global, which is part of the Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters, has released its 2011-2012 Tax Planning Guide.

President Obama took Republican lawmakers to task during a news conference Wednesday for inflexibly refusing to compromise on taxes as part of a deal to raise the debt limit.

U.S.-based multinational corporations and their lobbyists are pushing hard for a so-called “tax holiday” that would repatriate the earnings from their foreign subsidiaries, arguing that it would inject up to $1 trillion into the U.S. economy, but the prospects for job growth are murky at best.

California Governor Jerry Brown and Democratic lawmakers have struck a deal to close the state’s estimated $15 billion budget deficit, including provisions to force online retailers like Amazon.com to collect sales tax from customers.

Governments around the world are either increasing indirect taxes such as value-added taxes or introducing them for the first time.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has exited from negotiations over resolving the problem of the looming debt ceiling, saying he is unable to agree to any tax increases.