Tax planning

Republicans will gain greater leverage in Congress now that they have won control of the House and captured more seats in the Senate, giving them more influence over tax policy and financial regulation.

President Barack Obama reiterated his proposals for cuts in business and individual taxes and called on Republicans and Democrats to work together after the elections.

President Barack Obama visited a Maryland factory Friday and promoted his proposal for allowing businesses to deduct the entire cost of their purchases of new equipment through the end of next year.

Reports have surfaced that the federal debt commission (officially known as the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform) is considering the heretofore unimaginable elimination of popular tax breaks, including deductions on mortgage interest, as part of its report due on December 1.

Suppose the White House budget director abruptly resigned, with precious little explanation given for his departure?

It’s been five years since Connie Mack, as chair of President Bush’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, said that it would “take a fresh look at the existing Tax Code and will formulate options for making the tax system simple, fair and productive.

Vice President Joe Biden indicated that the White House could be ready to make a deal with Republicans on expanding the level of income that would qualify for the Bush tax cuts extension.

While we await the lame duck Congress to find out if and how much our taxes will rise next year, it might be well to remember that government — and the programs it loves to fund — will only keep growing until it runs out of funding. Hardly any government will willingly reduce programs, cut funding, or otherwise act within reasonable limits.

The worldwide decline in top personal income tax rates over the past seven years has come to an end, as this year’s average rate increased 0.3 percent globally.

While some states are now passing legislation that favors lenders, at the same time there are tantalizing federal and state tax benefits being offered to distressed homeowners who are facing foreclosure or considering short-selling.

Recently, I received a blast e-mail from a group who identified themselves as "concerned citizens" of my town. Without getting into shopworn specifics that most of you would not care about, these self-appointed monitors of fiscal prudence decried rising taxes and exhorted the local government to rescind a quasi-moratorium on development in order to generate more tax revenue.

Online bookkeeping service Outright.com has signed a partnership with H&R Block aimed at helping small-business owners deal with the increasing complexity of income taxes.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, criticized the U.S. Small Business Administration after it missed a deadline to send comments to the Treasury Department and the IRS about a controversial new 1099 reporting requirement for businesses.

The Supreme Court kicked off its new term on Monday with a brand new justice who will be hearing about a number of tax cases, at least when she doesn’t have to recuse herself.

The lame duck session slated to begin in mid-November leaves Congress a massive amount of unfinished business.

The American Institute of CPAs and 18 other groups have written a letter to congressional leaders encouraging them to ban tax strategy patents before adjourning.

Senate Republicans blocked a bill on Tuesday that would have denied tax breaks to companies that move jobs offshore and provide companies with a two-year holiday from their share of Social Security payroll tax withholding for each employee they hire to replace a worker at a foreign-based facility.

The Senate debated a bill on Monday that would give companies a two-year holiday from their share of Social Security payroll withholding for each employee they hire to replace a worker at a foreign-based facility.

A Kansas company has created a national online marketplace for matching buyers and sellers of transferable state tax credits.

Senate Democrats plan to hold a vote on the Bush tax cuts extension soon after the mid-term election in November, congressional leaders indicated.