Tax

A new Web site aims to establish a competitive bidding system where tax preparers can compete for clients.

Congress is scheduled to return Thursday, with one of its top priorities a deal to avert the December 31 “fiscal cliff” deadline of looming tax increases and automatic spending cuts, but it will need to work quickly or reach some type of interim agreement.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader who has stayed largely outside the U.S. budget fight this year, will be thrust into prominence just five days before the deadline for tax increases and spending cuts.

In the face of major uncertainty regarding the upcoming tax season, Jeff Gramlich, president of tax software developer CCH Small Firm Services, is urging tax preparers to get in touch and stay in touch with their clients.

IRS Acting Commissioner Steven T. Miller warned Congress on Wednesday that if lawmakers fail to extend the traditional alternative minimum tax patch, up to 100 million American taxpayers could be affected, and most taxpayers might not be able to file their tax returns until late March 2013 or later.

Payroll service provider Paychex has provided a list of five tax benefits that small businesses, and their accountants, should consider before the end of the year.

CCH has introduced a new tax planning tool to help tax advisors and their clients keep a step ahead of the fiscal cliff negotiations in Congress and the White House.

More than half of accountants are seeing their business owner clients making changes in their businesses as a result of the uncertainty surrounding the fiscal cliff, according to a new survey by the financial information company Sageworks.

A pair of lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill in the House to end a 78-year-old tax provision that includes dividends from controlled foreign corporations in personal holding company income.

Effective end-of-year letters and other communication with tax prep clients are more than reminders that those clients should hire you to do 2012 returns.