Tax

As the year winds down, tax practitioners are encouraged by more than the usual holiday cheer as they foresee both a pain-free and a profitable tax season ahead.

As the renowned Baby Boomer generation inches its way into the retirement years, employers are beginning to consider how this vast purge of experienced workers is going to affect the workplace.

Tax reform under the second Bush administration will most likely take the form of piecemeal tax cuts, according to participants in a tax panel sponsored by the Council for Electronic Revenue Communication Advancement, a government-private industry trade association. President Bush has said that he would appoint a panel to recommend changes to the tax code that would make it simpler, fairer and less burdensome.

As part of efforts to tighten ethical standards for tax professionals and curb abusive tax shelters, the Treasury has issued final regulations amending Treasury Circular 230, which governs the practice of attorneys, accountants and other tax professionals before the Internal Revenue Service.

With tax day fast approaching, CPAs may be feeling stressed. However, they may be able to make their own lives, as well as those of their small business clients, a little less tense by encouraging those clients to consider certain business expenditures before the upcoming tax season, according to Hewlett Packard and H&R Block.

Mphasis, which provides information technology and business process outsourcing through its operations in India, has launched an application service provider model of its Virtual Tax Room, used in outsourcing tax return preparation.

Triggered by congressional concerns over the marketing of abusive tax shelters by some accounting firms, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has proposed new rules restricting the ability of accountants to provide tax services to audit clients.

The Internal Revenue Service has teamed with the Department of Housing and Urban Development in an effort to expand the agencies' outreach to low-income taxpayers.

The majority of tax professionals who enter the financial planning business do so by hooking up with an independent broker/dealer firm, according to a report by market research and consulting firm Tiburon Strategic Advisors.

The Internal Revenue Service is co-sponsoring a free Webcast aimed at helping tax and payroll professionals who prepare individual federal tax returns to get ready for the upcoming filing season.