Tax

PRIVATE COLLECTION PROGRAM SURVIVES HOUSE VOTEBy a margin of 240-179, House lawmakers approved funding for the Internal Revenue

It is always difficult to get the Supreme Court to review a case, but this seems especially true for tax cases. The recent court term just ended proved to be no exception. Of several cases practitioners were hoping that the court would accept, only one received a grant of certiorari in the closing days of the term.It is the decisions for which the court grants certiorari where the fight, and the hope, goes on. It is, however, in the cases with respect to which certiorari is denied where taxpayers must finally face the facts or explore other remedies.

Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell vetoed a bill that would have allowed Connecticut to set its own accounting standards."I have serious concerns about the potential fiscal impact this bill may have," said Rell. "The plain language of this bill would allow the comptroller to issue financial statements in whatever standards she prescribed."

Fewer taxpayers took advantage of the Internal Revenue Service's free electronic tax return filing service in 2007 than in previous years, according to a new audit report released by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.Moreover, the audit identified multiple calculation errors made by the commercial software of Free File Alliance firms.

The Internal Revenue Service outlined the steps it plans to take to close the approximately $290 billion tax gap by encouraging more people and businesses to voluntarily pay what they owe the government, but it still faces an uphill battle.

The American Institute of CPAs scored a victory this week in convincing House lawmakers to remove a provision in the Farm Bill Extension Act of 2007 that it feared could jeopardize the business of CPAs in farming communities.

Representatives of private equity firms, hedge funds and other types of investment firms fought back against proposals to raise taxes on their incomes, telling the Senate Finance Committee that critics have misconceptions about their industry.

The National Society of Accountants is protesting an obscure new tax-reporting standard that it complains flew "under the radar" when it was stealthily inserted into an unrelated piece of Congressional legislation.

Two CPA firms on California's central coast have announced a merger: Bianchi, Lorincz, Huey, Hudson & Co. and Kasavan & Pope.

Grant Thornton CEO Edward E. Nusbaum has worked with the firm for 28 years, but since he took over the helm, the Chicago-based firm has more than doubled its revenue in the last four years, reaching $940 million in 2006.