WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. tax code changes on matters ranging from corporate jet depreciation to yacht and beach-home deductions will be in play once a congressional super committee to reduce the deficit gets down to work.

A comprehensive tax reform package is unlikely to emerge from the panel in the next four months, aides and analysts said on Thursday, citing the divisive power of 2012 election politics and the lack of adequate time for such a project.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. tax code changes on matters ranging from corporate jet depreciation to yacht and beach-home deductions will be in play once a congressional super committee to reduce the deficit gets down to work.

A comprehensive tax reform package is unlikely to emerge from the panel in the next four months, aides and analysts said on Thursday, citing the divisive power of 2012 election politics and the lack of adequate time for such a project.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – If Congress passes the debt ceiling deal by Tuesday, as expected, it could trigger a battle over tax reform within weeks and turn Washington once again into a dateline for deadlock.

The deal calls for a 12-member special congressional panel to locate $1.5 trillion in budget savings by late November. Some panel members will push for the first major tax code overhaul in 25 years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – If Congress passes the debt ceiling deal by Tuesday, as expected, it could trigger a battle over tax reform within weeks and turn Washington once again into a dateline for deadlock.

The deal calls for a 12-member special congressional panel to locate $1.5 trillion in budget savings by late November. Some panel members will push for the first major tax code overhaul in 25 years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When the last top-to-bottom overhaul of the U.S. tax code happened, almost miraculously, in 1986, Bob McIntyre helped usher it in.

The unassuming and dogged tax activist — whose research on corporations turned the head of President Ronald Reagan — is pessimistic about another reform anytime soon, despite growing talk of a tax code overhaul in the urgent debt ceiling talks.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Left-wing activists and politicians on Wednesday sharply criticized a plan to end U.S. taxation of most corporate offshore profits as endorsed by the Senate’s so-called “Gang of Six.”

In backing the idea of a territorial tax system, a deficit-reduction plan from the Gang of Six would hand multinational corporations a victory in their fight for lower and simpler taxes on profits they post outside the country.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A tax code loophole that gives corporations large deductions on executive stock options would be closed under legislation unveiled on Friday.

As Congress and the White House struggled with budget issues, Democratic Senator Carl Levin offered the measure, calling it a promising revenue-raiser that would discontinue “a taxpayer subsidy for the pay of corporate executives.”

WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) – Foreign financial
institutions will get another six months to start complying
with a new law to prevent offshore tax evasion by Americans
under a phased-in compliance schedule released on Thursday.

The Internal Revenue Service said it would give the
institutions until June 30, 2013, to reach agreements with the
agency on cooperation. These agreements previously had been
expected to be concluded by the end of 2012.

WASHINGTON, July 13 (Reuters) – No one knows exactly what
would happen in a U.S. government debt default, but economists
agreed on Wednesday that it would be best not to find out.

“You cannot play games with something this serious,” Simon
Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary
Fund, said at a congressional hearing.

WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) – U.S. multinational
corporations would have to report financial results on a
country-by-country basis, potentially revealing much about
their offshore tax and accounting practices, under legislation
introduced in the Senate on Tuesday.

Saying that offshore tax abuses cost the government $100
billion a year in lost revenue, Democratic Senator Carl Levin
said his bill would additionally close a loophole that allows
credit default swap payments to escape taxation if sent from
the United States to persons offshore.