Tax Strategies

A pair of lawmakers plan to introduce bipartisan legislation in the House that would provide permanent tax incentives to family farmers, ranchers and other land owners who choose not to develop their land and instead preserve their property for conservation.

Your client has a successful closely held business. Perhaps your client has already indicated that, at some indeterminate point in the future, the business will be sold. Even if your client has not given such an indication, you are well advised to at least broach the topic as a matter of long-term contingency planning.

Conservative economist Dr. Arthur Laffer has co-written a study that identified a positive economic impact in efforts to require online retailers to collect sales taxes from customers on Internet purchases.

The international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has produced an action plan at the request of the G20 finance ministers to address the problems of base erosion and profit shifting that are depleting corporate tax revenue as multinational companies transfer their profits to low-tax countries.

Captive insurance companies, once the exotic plaything of large corporations, are now open and advantageous to much smaller companies. But most accountants don’t know enough about captive insurance companies to advise their business clients on the advantages of starting their own, according to Brian McCormick and Jerry Messick of Elevate Captives LLC.

For some companies that got a temporary reprieve from the IRS in the height of the recession, the payback isn’t going to be as bad as they expected.

Sales tax and compliance automation service Avalara has formed a strategic alliance with AGN International-North America Inc. which will enable firms to access sales and use tax (SUT) and value added tax (VAT) information and related resources.

Thomson Reuters has released the 2013 edition of its annual Tax Planning Guide.

House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., contended that the immigration reform bill approved by the Senate last month violates the Constitution because it contains revenue provisions that are supposed to originate in the House.

The Treasury Department said Friday that due to overwhelming interest from countries around the world, it will extend by six months the start of the withholding and account due diligence requirements of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, until July 1, 2014, to allow more time to complete agreements with foreign jurisdictions.