U.S. Park Police Officer Calvin Covington with his horse Harper mails his family's income tax returns at a mobile post office near the Internal Revenue Service building in downtown Washington. REUTERS/Jonathan

Welcome to the top tax and accounting headlines from Reuters and other sources. 

“This is going to be one of the craziest years I’ve seen,” said Mark Steber, chief tax officer for Jackson Hewitt Tax Services. “It’s kind of the perfect tax storm.”

For those of us still smarting from the 2011 tax comeuppance, 2012 is nothing to look forward to.

Welcome to the top tax and accounting headlines from Reuters and other sources.

* Romney specifies deductions he would cut. Sara Murray – The Wall Street Journal. In order to offset the 20 percent income tax cut he has proposed for all taxpayers, Romney would eliminate or limit for high-earners the mortgage interest deduction for second homes, and likely would do the same for the state income tax deduction and state property tax deduction. He also said he would look to the Department of Education and the Department of Housing and Urban Development for budget cuts. Link

* Q+A: The ‘Buffett Rule,’ a minimum tax on the rich. Kim Dixon and Patrick Temple-West – Reuters. President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are laying a political trap for Republicans to be sprung on Monday when the U. S. Senate is slated to vote on the proposed “Buffett Rule,” which would slap a minimum tax on the highest-income Americans. Link

Tax collections rose in all 50 states last year, according to the U.S. Census bureau, as our colleague Lisa Lambert reported Thursday.

“The nationwide increases in state government tax revenue are an indication of the stabilization of revenues for state governments,” Lisa Blumerman, chief of the Governments Division at the Census, was quoted as saying.

Some important upcoming events in the tax and accounting world:

Monday, April 16 - U.S. taxpayers holding foreign financial assets with an aggregate value exceeding $50,000 after March 18, 2010 must report information about those accounts under FACTA using form 8938, or face stiff penalties.

Tuesday, April  17 -

Tax day in the United States. Individual income tax returns and gift tax returns due. Tax-writing U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means will hold a hearing on possible reforms to certain tax-favored retirement savings plans including employer-sponsored defined contribution plans and Individual Retirement Accounts (“IRAs”) that might be considered as part of comprehensive tax reform.  10 am, Room 1100 of the Longworth House Office Building.

Tuesday, April 17 – Friday, April 20 – International Accounting Standards Board meeting in London.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in Washington February 21, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed

Welcome to the top tax and accounting headlines from Reuters and other sources.

* Obamas and Bidens to release tax returns. Mark Landler and Jim Rutenberg – The New York Times. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden plan to release their own income tax returns on Friday, along with a statement calling on Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney to do the same, according to an Obama campaign official. Link

Then-U.S president Ronald Reagan, October 19, 1983 REUTERS/Mal Langsdon

Welcome to the top tax and accounting headlines from Reuters and other sources.

* Swiss court ruling hampers a tax deal. David Jolly – The New York Times. In a setback for efforts to end a tax dispute between the United States and Switzerland, a Swiss court announced on Wednesday that Credit Suisse could not turn over account data of its American clients to the United States tax authorities because doing so would violate the terms of a 1996 tax treaty between the two countries. Link  

* Obama dubs tax plan ‘Reagan rule’. James Politi and Richard McGregor – The Financial Times. Barack Obama suggested Ronald Reagan would be sympathetic to a minimum tax on the wealthiest Americans, saying the so-called “Buffett rule” could be renamed the “Reagan rule” in the Republican icon’s honor. Link 

U.S. President Barack Obama arrives to speak about tax fairness and the economy at Florida Atlantic University, April 10, 2012. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Welcome to the top tax and accounting headlines from Reuters and other sources.

* Soaking the rich might not be a panacea. Vanessa Houlder – The Financial Times. The super rich are under fire across much of the developed world. U.S. President Barack Obama is on the road this week promoting the “Buffett rule”, a minimum tax on millionaires. In France, François Hollande is proposing a 75 per cent tax rate on the rich. In Britain, George Osborne, chancellor, has expressed shock at evidence showing the scale of tax planning by some of the wealthiest people in the country. Link

Why do people in California have so many tax questions?

In the last three months,Avvo, a site where people from all over the United States can go for free answers to legal and medical questions, has seen a more than 200 percent climb in its tax-related questions. The area with the most tax questions was Los Angeles, but San Francisco and San Diego  were also leaders in the area.

Josh King, a Seattle lawyer who’s also vice president of business development and general counsel for Avvo, said a lot of the California tax questions are property-related, the leftovers of that state’s real estate meltdown. Among them: the tax implication of short sales and foreclosures, as well as how to get property tax reassessed.

If you are writing a check to your state department of revenue or the IRS over the next few weeks, or are simply reminded by tax time just how much you send along to the government each year, you may well wonder where all that money is going.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities put together two graphics which capture the highlights.