Tax

With the Tax Code constantly in a state of flux with new tax laws, not to mention delayed effective dates on tax provisions, sunsetting provisions, and phase-ins and phase-outs, every year offers some new wrinkles for tax professionals to worry about.The 2007 tax year is no exception.

Jackson Hewitt Tax Service said it has completed its internal review of fraud allegations by the Justice Department against several of its franchisees and said its corporate employees were not involved.

The Senate Finance Committee continued its examination of whether to raise taxes on the earnings of managers of private equity firms and hedge funds by looking at the impact of carried interest taxation on pension funds.

While the Internal Revenue Service has issued a plan that adopts the IRS Oversight Board's goal of 86 percent voluntary compliance by 2009, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson cautioned against IRS efforts to ramp up enforcement excessively and cut corners in its treatment of taxpayers if it is pressured to do too much too soon."For fiscal year 2008, both the Internal Revenue Service and the Taxpayers Advocate Service face similar challenges," she said, in the second of her two annual reports to Congress. "The IRS is under scrutiny for its efforts to close the tax gap, while the TAS is struggling to address taxpayer difficulties that arise as a result of these very efforts."

President Bush is considering the possibility of simplifying the corporate tax system, as long as the changes don't affect the amount of taxes the government collects.The president's announcement came on the heels of a conference convened by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in July, in which he proposed a cut in corporate taxes to make the U.S. more competitive.

The House Ways and Means Committee held hearings on proposals to raise taxes on managers of private equity firms and hedge funds, and to combat the expanding impact of the alternative minimum tax, as well as listening to testimony about the impact of the Bush tax cuts.

Thomson Corp. said it would acquire the Deloitte Tax LLP Property Tax Services business for an undisclosed sum.

Busy season, long days, work on weekends, that’s all inevitable, right?

The Internal Revenue Service is providing taxpayers' personal and financial information to agencies in all 50 states, but is not adequately safeguarding the security of that information, said a report from a Treasury Department watchdog.

Relatively few taxpayers are making use of the Advanced Earned Income Tax Credit, but many of those who do receive the AEITC do not comply with the requirements of the program, according to a government report.