Tag Archive for Congress

Thoughts On The National Taxpayer Advocate’s 2018 Report

Today’s blog is short and sweet because . . . well, because today we are releasing the 295-page National Taxpayer Advocate’s Fiscal Year 2018 Objectives Report to Congress, and that’s enough reading for anyone! By way of background, in IRC § 7803(c)(B), Congress required the National Taxpayer Advocate to submit two reports to the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Finance of the Senate before any officer or employee of the IRS, the Treasury Department, or the Office of Management and Budget sees them. Most readers are familiar with the report due on December 31 of each year, which includes discussions of twenty of the most serious problems facing taxpayers, as well as legislative and administrative recommendations. But there is another report – the Objectives Report – that is due on June 30th of each year. Read More

Written by | Posted in IRS

Extended Due Date For Calendar Year Corp – What?

Annette Nellen

In 2015, Congress changed the due date for several types of entities as well as for the FBAR (for foreign financial accounts). The AICPA has a wonderful chart with all of the new dates noted.

When Congress made the changes for C corporations, they apparently had a concern with a change that would move a due date from one government fiscal year into the next fiscal year. The federal government’s fiscal year ends September 30.

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Written by | Posted in FBAR

Congressional Tax Legislative Process Educational Series #2

This is the second article in TaxConnections series of developing a better understanding of the how our Federal tax laws are initiated and implemented, and the various participants in Congress, including Members of Congress, their qualified technical and administrative staffs involved in that process. It also highlights the techniques utilized by the private sector (individuals, businesses large and small, plus associations) in that effort. (To read the first article, click here)

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Written by | Posted in Tax Law

Congressional Tax Legislative Process

As a forward to this Special Article, I want to tell you it has been written by our new TaxConnections Member Tom Kerester. Tom has extensive experience on Capitol Hill in the United States Congress as a Legislative Attorney on the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (that served five committees of the Congress) and on the House Committee on Ways and Means. As a Former Executive Director of Tax Executives Institute (1985-1992) in Washington, D.C., Tom then went on to a Presidential Appointment with Senate Confirmation under the Administration of George H.W. Bush as Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the United States Small Business Administration and in the Congressional Office of Congressman Bill Thomas (CA). Tom also was the 1st President of the Capitol Hill Chapter of the Federal Bar Association whose members included over 300 Attorneys working on the Hill, and now has over 13,000 lawyer members worldwide. 

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Written by | Posted in Tax Law

Annual Report Released By The National Taxpayer Advocate

Kat Jennings

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson released her 2016 Annual Report to Congress, recommending that the IRS revamp its “Future State” plan to adopt a taxpayer-centric focus and urging Congress to simplify the tax code. The report presents a series of proposals to improve tax administration, placing particular emphasis on changing the culture of the IRS. Olson explains that “to create an environment that encourages taxpayer trust and confidence, the IRS must change its culture from one that is enforcement-oriented to one that is service-oriented.”

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Written by | Posted in 2016 Tax update

Bipartisan Blockchain Caucus Launched In Congress

Annette Nellen

The Blockchain which is best known for the “guts” of how bitcoin transactions are verified, recorded and transacted, has uses beyond bitcoin. This decentralized system can be used to verify and process many types of transactions where two or more parties want verification of authenticity and to get information or transfer information or value. IBM and others have been exploring this. The Federal Reserve and others held a conference on the topic in June.

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Written by | Posted in Virtual Currency

Online Sales Tax Review: What Do You Need To Know?

Monika Miles

Have you been keeping up with the online sales tax debate? Are you curious which pieces of internet sales tax legislation are still circulating in Congress? Here’s a quick summary of the current bills we’ve been watching, and the pros and cons for each one.

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Written by | Posted in 2016 Tax Changes • Sales/Use Tax

IRS Wins Big At 2016 Summer Olympics

Barry Fowler

With the exciting 2016 Summer Olympics not too far behind us, the thrill of victory for the American athletes may be diminishing slightly. What’s probably coming up for many of them though is the tiring topic of taxes.

Just how much of their wins will they have to turn over to Uncle Sam?

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Written by | Posted in IRS • Tax Policy • Tax Reform

Will Your Favorite Tax Benefit Expire?

More than 50 tax provisions that Congress routinely extends on a yearly basis expired at the end of 2014. The big problem is each year they are extending the provisions later and later in the year creating uncertainty for taxpayers on whether they can depend on these tax incentives or not. This makes tax planning unclear and leaves taxpayers wondering about their projected tax liability.

For 2014, Congress waited almost to the end of the year to apply many of the provisions to the 2014 tax year. This was not only a problem for taxpayers but also for the IRS, which needed to adjust its forms and tax filing software at the last minute and actually had to delay the start of the tax season. Read More

Written by | Posted in Tax Provision/Tax Reporting

The Broad Tax Extenders Coalition Urges Congress to Take Immediate Action on Tax Extenders Legislation

The Broad Tax Extenders Coalition (hereinafter “the Coalition”) are recommending to lawmakers on Capitol Hill to take immediate action on over fifty tax provisions that previously expired on December 31st of 2014. In a recent letter dated September 10th of 2015, the Coalition comprised of over two thousand organizations informed members of Congress that failure to timely extend the tax provisions will result in a significant increase in tax liabilities on both business entities as well as individuals.

As a background it should be duly recalled that previously on July 21st of 2015th, the Senate Finance Committee overwhelmingly passed a tax extenders bill with a bipartisan vote of 23 to 3 that planned to extend over fifty previously expired tax provisions for a two year period (e.g., retroactively to cover all of calendar year 2015 and prospectively to cover Read More

Written by | Posted in R&D Credit Services • Tax Provision/Tax Reporting

Avoiding IRS Underpayment Penalties

Congress considers our tax system as a “pay-as-you-go” system. To facilitate that concept, the government has provided several means of assisting taxpayers in meeting the “pay-as-you-go” requirement. These include:

• Payroll withholding for employers;

• Pension withholding for retirees; and

• Estimated tax payments for self-employed individuals and those with other sources of income not covered by withholding.

When a taxpayer fails to prepay a safe harbor (minimum) amount, he or she can be Read More

Written by | Posted in IRS

Making Citizenship-Based Taxation Reform Easy

Making Citizenship-Based Tax Reform “Easy”

Heitor David Pinto wants to “make it easy” for Congress to move from citizenship-based taxation (CBT) to residence-based taxation (RBT).

Pinto thinks CBT is “absurd.” And he aims to help Congress change it.

Because of CBT’s complexity and because it’s a low priority for Congress, Pinto was concerned Congress might take a long time or might not do tax reform at all for Americans abroad.  But, Pinto hopes “if it’s mostly done already, they might do it faster.”

When the naturalized American citizen immigrated to the United States from Brazil a Read More

Written by | Posted in Expatriate • FATCA • FBAR • Individual • International • IRS • Tax Provision/Tax Reporting
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