BUSINESS
March 8, 2010
Help for filers Taxes are more complicated than ever. Here are some resources to help keep you and your small business up to date with the latest changes and proposals. Federal : The Internal Revenue Service's small-business and self-employed section has helpful information at www.irs.gov/businesses/small. State: California's Franchise Tax Board has business tax information at www.ftb.ca.gov/businesses. Private: CCH Inc. posts business tax news and information at www.cch.
NATIONAL
February 20, 2010 | By Richard Fausset
Where did all of Joe Stack's anger come from? That was the question Texas singer-songwriter Billy Eli has been turning over in his head in Birmingham, Ala., this week, where he has been recording songs and following the sad and vexing news about his old bass player and friend. Authorities believe that A. Joseph Stack, 53, burned down his house Thursday morning and then flew a plane into a building in Austin, Texas, in what an FBI official described Friday as an assault against the IRS. A person calling himself "Joe Stack" left an apparent suicide note on the Web. The anti-tax manifesto was replete with a sense of anguish and frustration at his financial setbacks, tax woes and difficulty finding work in Austin.
BUSINESS
January 24, 2010 | By Kenneth R. Harney
If you've been holding back on the new $6,500 federal tax credit for repeat home purchases, you now have all the official IRS guidance you'll need to buy a house, qualify for the credit and pocket the $6,500. That's because the Internal Revenue Service finally published the rules for the repeat purchase credit along with key details for taxpayers that had been missing since President Obama signed the legislation creating the program Nov. 6. The IRS posted its revised Form 5405 on its website ( www.irs.
BUSINESS
January 5, 2010 | By Jim Puzzanghera
The Internal Revenue Service for the first time will require the nation's roughly 1 million tax preparers to register with the federal government, with a large percentage of them having to pass competency tests and stay up to date on tax laws by taking 15 hours of classes a year. The rules, announced Monday, come after a six-month study by the IRS that found a need for greater protection for the estimated 87 million people -- about 80% of all filers -- who hire a preparer or use tax preparation software to file their taxes.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
December 1, 2009 | By Michael Rothfeld
For much of his life, Arnold Schwarzenegger the celebrity has lived above the fray, immune to the little annoyances most other people face. But over the last few days, Arnold Schwarzenegger the taxpayer ran headlong into two of them -- the IRS and the post office -- in what his business manager said was a snafu involving payroll tax filings and undelivered mail. The nearly $80,000 federal tax lien the Internal Revenue Service lodged against the governor of California in May resulted from confusion caused by a disparity between the reference number used on his personal tax returns and the one on the payroll tax forms for his household employees that were filed with the Social Security Administration, according to his business manager, Paul Wachter.
BUSINESS
November 18, 2009 | David S. Hilzenrath
If your secret Swiss bank account did not contain too much money or generate too much income, you can breathe easier: A landmark deal between the United States and Switzerland to expose U.S. tax dodgers does not call for the Swiss to blow your cover. But if you exceeded the threshold and failed to disclose the account to the Internal Revenue Service, don't count on Switzerland's legendary tradition of bank secrecy to protect you any longer. It may be just a matter of time before your account details are in the hands of U.S. tax collectors and prosecutors.