Tax Break

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

* Obama officials hold early budget talks with Republicans. Jackie Calmes – The New York Times.  The meeting on Thursday was an early step in a long process, with an end goal of both raising tax revenues and curbing the growth of spending for Medicare and other entitlement benefit programs. Link

* U.S. official: Transfer pricing enforcement should precede new rules. Emily Chasan – The Wall Street Journal. Governments should focus on enforcing laws already the books that govern the way large multinational companies move profits between high and low tax countries before writing new legislation, a U.S. Treasury tax official said Thursday. Link

* Carbon tax on the table in the Senate. Stephen Stromberg – The Washington Post. On Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee released a package of ideas that would involve reforming the tax code for infrastructure, energy and natural resources. Link

* Shopping tax free on the web nears end. Ann Zimmerman and Greg Bensinger – The Wall Street Journal. Online shoppers, beware. Freedom from sales taxes is on the way out. Link

* Tax surprises can follow when payroll firms implode. Angus Loten – The Wall Street Journal. In the past five years federal officials have prosecuted at least two dozen mostly small payroll firms that together allegedly pocketed more than $300 million in taxes from their clients, according to an IRS tally based on public records. Link

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

 * UK premier David Cameron presses EU on tax evaders. Vanessa Houlder and George Parker – The Financial Times. David Cameron on Wednesday urged European leaders to be in the vanguard of a global effort to crack down on aggressive tax avoidance and evasion, as he tries to build momentum before the G8 summit in Northern Ireland in June. Link    

* States push to get the most out of marijuana taxes. Dan Frosch – The New York Times. If marijuana is legalized and properly regulated, its proponents have long said, it could generate millions of dollars in state tax revenue. But how the drug should be taxed has proved to be a thorny question. Link    

* Housing industry defends US tax breaks. James Politi – The Financial Times. The US housing industry will warn lawmakers not to curb the tax deduction on mortgage interest as they grapple with ways to reform the US tax code and reduce America’s budget deficits. Link    

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

* Congress looks at REIT tax exemption. A.D. Pruitt – The Wall Street Journal. A powerful congressional committee is examining the tax exemption that real-estate investment trusts have enjoyed for decades as part of its comprehensive review of the tax code. Link    

* Backers and opponents of online sales tax ramp up lobbying. John McKinnon – The Wall Street Journal. Both sides in the online sales tax debate were ramping up lobbying efforts and forming new alliances Tuesday in hopes of swaying a coming Senate vote on a bill that would effectively end tax-free Internet shopping in most states. Link 

* IRS issued billions in improper refunds, report says. Josh Hicks – The Washington Post. The Internal Revenue Service issued more than $11 billion in improper payments through its Earned Income Tax Credit program last year, according to an inspector general’s report released this week. Link 

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

* Analysis of Obama’s budget finds a higher tax burden for most Americans. Zachary Goldfarb – The Washington Post. President Obama’s budget would raise taxes mainly on people earning more than $200,000 a year, although earners at nearly every income level would face a somewhat higher tax burden, according to a new nonpartisan analysis. Link

* The incredible shrinking budget deficit. Annie Lowrey – The New York Times. The growing economy is bolstering tax revenue and reducing the need for spending on programs like unemployment insurance. Link

* Hasbro weighing repatriation tax strategies. Maxwell Murphy – The Wall Street Journal. Hasbro Inc. is evaluating tax-efficient repatriation options for its $1.1 billion in overseas cash, executives said on a Monday conference call to discuss the toymaker’s first-quarter results. Link

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

* Restyled as real estate trusts, varied businesses avoid taxes. Nathaniel Popper – The New York Times. A small but growing number of American corporations, operating in businesses as diverse as private prisons, billboards and casinos, are making an aggressive move to reduce — or even eliminate — their federal tax bills. Link    

*  European FTT could cost U.S. funds ‘up to $35 billion.’ Mark Cobley – The Wall Street Journal. Europe’s proposed levy on financial transactions could cost U.S. money market funds up to $35bn, according to the first quantitative analysis of the impact of the tax on the U.S. funds industry. Link    

* Survey: Economists say higher taxes, lower government spending not affecting businesses. The Associated Press. The National Association for Business Economics survey asks how higher taxes and lower government spending effected businesses in the first three months of 2013. Link    

Some important events in the week ahead:

 Monday, April 22

* New York University program on the future of pass-through entity taxation. 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. ET, Furman Hall, NYU. New York.

 Tuesday, April 23

* Internal Revenue Service hearing on proposed regulations providing guidance on large employers’ health insurance coverage responsibilities. 10 a.m. ET, IRS Auditorium. Washington.

* Cory A. Johnson, Senior Litigation Counsel, U.S. DOJ Tax Division is a panelist discussing tax cases at the Court of Federal Claims Barr Association lunch. Noon, offices of Caplin & Drysdale. Washington.

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

* Not-so-taxing talk at Verizon. Miriam Gottfried – The Wall Street Journal. Nothing is certain but death and taxes. Yet Verizon Communications seems to think it has a way around the latter. Link 

* Advisers, IRS help on taxes after Boston bombings. Arden Dale – The Wall Street Journal. The IRS has told Boston-area taxpayers they have until July 15 to file 2012 returns and pay taxes that would normally be due on April 15. Link

* On whether the rich pay too little in taxes. Catherine Rampell – The New York Times. The share of the nation’s total tax bill that is paid by the wealthy has been growing — but that’s because the incomes of the wealthy have increased so strikingly, faster than the individual tax rates they face have fallen. Link

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

* IRS announces three-month tax extension after attack. Laura Saunders – The Wall Street Journal. The Internal Revenue Service announced a three-month tax filing and payment extension for Boston-area taxpayers following Monday’s explosions during the Boston Marathon. Link    

* The tax implications of starting a business with retirement money. Josh Patrick – The New York Times. Retirement money is being used to finance thousands of businesses, but it has yet to receive the full blessing of either the Internal Revenue Service or the Department of Labor. Link   

* IRS auditors targeting small business owners – but there are ways to protect your company. J.D. Harrison – The Washington Post. A new study used by the Internal Revenue Service to determine its auditing priorities shows small business owners in a handful of metropolitan areas are particularly likely to cheat Uncle Sam. Link    

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

* Prosecutors charge Swiss lawyer, banker in tax-evasion case. Reed Albergotti – The Wall Street Journal. In the latest move in their crackdown on overseas tax evasion, federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against a lawyer and a banker from Switzerland and accused them of helping Americans hide assets. Link  

* FATCA emerging as global standard. C.M. Matthews – The Wall Street Journal. If you didn’t report assets held overseas, it’s looking like you may regret it. The United States’ Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act appears to be emerging as an international standard. Link  

* Tax plan may provide boost. Sarah Krouse – The Wall Street Journal. Despite the austerity mood in Washington, President Obama’s proposed budget would provide tax relief to some foreign investors, a move the U.S. real-estate industry has been seeking for years. Link  

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

 * Tax filing is slow, but collections rise. John McKinnon – The Wall Street Journal. The fiscal-cliff deal continues to slow tax filing, thanks to changes that required the Internal Revenue Service to delay the tax season’s opening. Link

 * House votes to crack down on tax-delinquent contractors but not individuals. Josh Hicks – The Washington Post. The House on Monday unanimously backed legislation to bar federal funding for contractors that fall behind on taxes but rejected a proposal to prohibit tax-delinquent individuals from working for the federal government. Link 

* UK moves to end extreme tax avoidance. Vanessa Houlder – The Financial Times. Tax planners who exploit defects in poorly drafted laws will fall foul of the new general anti-abuse rule (GAAR), according to guidance issued on Monday that aimed to sweep away the idea that taxation was a “game” in which taxpayers could use their ingenuity to reduce their tax bills by any lawful means. Link