Tax Strategies

The head of the United Kingdom's tax authority, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, resigned after it was revealed that two discs with information on 25 million people from 7.25 million families was missing.

President Bush plans to nominate Douglas Shulman as Internal Revenue Service commissioner.

Unfortunately, since December 31 coincides with the tax-reporting period for 99 percent of U.S. individual taxpayers, the average taxpayer will only begin thinking about their 2007 taxes during the first quarter of 2008. Unfortunately, this delay is generally very costly, since almost every individual taxpayer reports taxable income on a cash basis, as opposed to an accrual basis.

President Bush is nominating Nathan J. Hochman, of California, to be Assistant Attorney General (Tax Division) at the Department of Justice.

David Greenberg, a former tax partner with KPMG, faced a superseding indictment that added six more charges of tax evasion to the charges he was already facing as part of the government's case against KPMG's marketing of questionable tax shelters for clients.

H&R Block Chairman and CEO Mark Ernst has stepped down two weeks after the company CFO resigned, as the company faces losses from its subprime mortgage operations.

New York State tax officials are crying foul over New York Yankees captain Derek Jeter's claim of Florida residence and are demanding that he pay back taxes that could amount to millions.

Tax software vendors Intuit and H&R Block were hit with a potential multi-billion-dollar class-action lawsuit alleging that they charge excessive fees for electronic filing.

CCH debuted a Web-based tool designed to find local incentives that can reduce income, property, and sales and use taxes, as well as identify enterprise zones and non-tax financial incentives.

Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee have introduced a bill to prohibit the Patent and Trademark Office from granting any further patents for tax strategies and tax-planning inventions.