Tax

President Obama is proposing to expand and simplify the permanent research and experimentation tax credit, increasing the rate of the simpler form of the credit 17 percent to simplify the process for businesses.

President Obama has not yet formally unveiled his plans for stirring up the sleeping job market through business tax breaks and infrastructure spending, but his ideas are already provoking skepticism.

The National Society of Accountants has written to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the Internal Revenue Service urging them not to agree to calls by the American Institute of CPAs to exempt non-signing preparers at CPA firms from the IRS’s new tax preparer registration requirements.

President Obama is scheduled to deliver a speech Wednesday in which he will reportedly propose a series of business tax cuts, along with new infrastructure spending.

H&R Block is cutting costs and will be closing more offices before next tax season, allowing the company to reduce its continuing losses.

It’s been five years since former Senator Connie Mack, then chairman of the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, said the panel would “take a fresh look at the existing Tax Code and will formulate options for making the tax system simple, fair and productive.”

The Treasury Department said it would launch a new pilot program next tax season for people without bank accounts, directly depositing their tax refunds in special accounts that they will be able to access with debit cards.

New York and Philadelphia have been provoking the ire of their residents lately by levying taxes on two formerly sacrosanct local products.

Taxpayers will be able to receive their income tax refunds on a reloadable prepaid Western Union MoneyWise MasterCard next tax season as a result of a new agreement that CCH Small Firm Services has struck with Western Union.

President Barack Obama blasted Senate Republicans for obstructing his administration’s top legislative priority: a bill providing tax cuts and a $32 billion lending fund for small businesses to spur job growth.