Tax Strategies

Ten multinational U.S.-based corporations, including Apple, Merck, Microsoft and Pfizer, each increased their foreign profits by $5 billion or more last year, continuing a trend in which U.S. corporations held more of their money in low-tax countries.

House Republicans and Senate Democrats are introducing competing budget plans with starkly different tax proposals.

The chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, Dave Camp R-Mich., released a set of proposals Tuesday discussion draft aimed at reforming the tax laws for small businesses.

John Paulson, a lifelong New Yorker, is exploring a move to Puerto Rico, where a new law would eliminate taxes on gains from the $9.5 billion he has invested in his own hedge funds, according to four people who have spoken to him about a possible relocation.

The IRS recently made it clear that even if taxpayers engage a third party to perform a cost segregation analysis, they cannot avoid penalties for aggressive positions taken in the cost segregation report.

Small business owners prefer a Tax Code with low rates and fewer deductions, according to a new survey by the National Federation of Independent Business, but their bottom line is whether their taxes rise or fall.

With lawmakers under pressure to find ways to reduce the deficit while avoiding the more painful spending cuts in the sequester, the Senate Budget Committee held a hearing to examine how to reduce the deficit by eliminating wasteful spending in the Tax Code.

Taxes are increasingly spreading beyond national and state borders to make more of a global impact, affecting economic activity across the world.

The Internal Revenue Service said that budget sequestration would require reductions in refundable credits for certain tax-exempt bonds and the refundable portion of the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit for some small tax-exempt employers.

President Obama said that he hoped to work with members of both parties in Congress to stop the damaging impact of the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that officially began on Friday.