Tax

Businesses paid $497 billion in state and local taxes for the 2005 fiscal year, about 44 percent of the total taxes collected by all state and local governments, according to the annual study prepared by the Quantitative Economics and Statistics practice of Ernst & Young in conjunction with the Council On State Taxation.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, J. Russell George, said bad data is to blame for the Internal Revenue Services' never-realized plan to close 68 Taxpayer Assistance Centers across the country.

The Internal Revenue Service is inviting individuals to help improve the nation's tax agency by applying to be members of the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel. The panel provides a forum for citizens from each state to make suggestions regarding IRS decision-making.

A complaint has been lodged with the Government Accountability Office that could again stall the Internal Revenue Service's plan to subcontract cases to private debt collection firms.

Roy Martin Jr. is president and chief executive of Thomson Tax & Accounting, a subsidiary of The Thomson Corp. and a provider of information and workflow solutions to accounting, tax and corporate finance professionals.

The Internal Revenue Service is considering a proposal to loosen the privacy standards of federal income tax returns. The change could allow accountants and other tax return preparers to sell information from individual returns to marketers and data brokers, according to published reports.

Congress has begun to focus in on reforms for the nation's health care tax policy -- a move that could impact hundreds of billions of dollars a year in cherished tax breaks for individuals and employers.

The Internal Revenue Service's 2005 IRS Data Book is now available at the agency's Web site.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued guidance describing 26 frivolous arguments that taxpayers should avoid when filing their returns.

California's attorney general has filed a lawsuit against H&R Block in an attempt to halt the tax prep giant's loan program, which allows the company to take a percentage of clients' tax refunds in exchange for an advance.Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court, noting that more than 1.5 million Californians have received tax refund loans through Block since 2001. A number of other suits have been filed around the country against Block, saying that the loan practice is unfair, especially because many low-income filers accept the offer.