Tax Strategies

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson announced that the Internal Revenue Service has awarded almost $8 million in matching grants to Low-Income Taxpayer Clinics for the 2007 grant cycle.

Federal prosecutors won’t pursue the Texas law firm of Sidley Austin LLP for its part in signing off on sketchy tax shelter structures.

There’s no real question that something needs to be done about the fate of the alternative minimum tax.

A federal court in Portland, Ore., sentenced a former Oregon chemical company executive to serve 18 months in prison and pay a $50,000 criminal fine following his conviction on two counts of filing false federal income tax returns.Trevor Smith, the former vice president of sales for Raisio Western North America, was convicted in March on charges of filing false returns for the 1999 and 2000 tax years. While employed at Raisio, federal prosecutors said that Smith received approximately $350,000 in kickback payments from the former general manager of Georgia-based Chemical Products Technologies. Those payments were related to Raisio’s purchases of a pulping additive used to increase pulp yield, and were not claimed by Smith on his returns.

The New York State Society of CPAs has installed David A. Lifson as its new president, while the Virginia Society of CPAs has selected Monique T. Valentine as chair of its board of directors for the upcoming year.

The Supreme Court has ruled that only the U.S. Tax Court can review refusals by the Internal Revenue Service to reduce interest payments on people who underpay their taxes.

Internet tax research, once a novelty, is now the standard, with a number of publishers offering publications that are only available online."We still subscribe to some paper products, but using the Web-based versions is much more efficient," said Cindy Hockenberry, tax information analyst at the Appleton, Wis.-based National Association of Tax Professionals. "The transition in going from paper to online was not as difficult as we anticipated. Books are still useful where you know where a topic is that you researched before, but the search engines on the different platforms make up for that. And it's incredibly helpful to have immediate access to all the cross references that you might not have thought about."

GAO TO IRS: FORGET SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENTThe Government Accountability Office said that the Internal Revenue Service doesn't appear to be in a position to develop its own software for tax preparation anytime soon.

H&R Block Inc. announced that its new bank opened more than 2 million prepaid card bank accounts by the end of the 2007 tax season, doubling the company’s original projection.

The Internal Revenue Service is reportedly after Golden State Warriors owner Chris Cohan for some $160 million in back taxes.Cohan, a former cable television mogul, has been legally fighting with the agency for years over the 1998 sale of his former company, Sonic Communications.