Internal Revenue Service

Fred T. Goldberg, chief counsel of the Internal Revenue Service, will be nominated by President Bush to run the tax-collection agency, the White House has announced. Goldberg, who has been the agency's top attorney since 1984, worked as an assistant to the IRS commissioner in 1981 and 1982.

Dear Karen: I declared bankruptcy a few years ago. Now I have a new business. Can I get a business loan? Answer: The bankruptcy will affect your credit rating for at least seven years. But you may get a loan before then if your company is profitable, said Bob Seiwert, a senior vice president at the American Bankers Assn. If you have a business partner with assets or good credit, that person may be able to personally guarantee a business loan. If you're on your own, investigate alternatives.

Mark Ernst, who left the top job at tax preparer H&R Block Inc. after the company suffered more than $1 billion in losses tied to subprime lending by its mortgage unit, was named a deputy commissioner at the Internal Revenue Service. Ernst, 50, will oversee operations support, an IRS statement said.

With the Obama administration and private lenders actively considering mortgage-principal-reduction programs to help financially distressed homeowners, the Internal Revenue Service has issued an advisory to taxpayers who receive -- or seek to receive -- such assistance if it's offered. The IRS gets involved in mortgage principal write-downs because the federal tax code generally treats any forgiveness of debt by a creditor in excess of $600 as ordinary taxable income to the recipient.

With the Obama administration and private lenders actively considering mortgage-principal-reduction programs to help financially distressed homeowners, the Internal Revenue Service has issued an advisory to taxpayers who receive -- or seek to receive -- such assistance if it's offered. The IRS gets involved in mortgage principal write-downs because the federal tax code generally treats any forgiveness of debt by a creditor in excess of $600 as ordinary taxable income to the recipient.

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.

The downtown Internal Revenue Service office here was the target of a failed bombing attack early Monday, authorities said. There was no explosion and no one was hurt. Nearby offices and residents were evacuated while a police bomb squad removed three five-gallon propane tanks and hoses pumping explosive gas into the IRS office through a broken window, said Sgt. Chris Moore. There were no arrests.

Two 1998 deals to unload Times Mirror Co. subsidiaries were done for business reasons, and not to dodge taxes, former company executives Mark H. Willes and Thomas Unterman testified Tuesday. Chicago-based Tribune Co., which bought Times Mirror in 2000, is defending the two deals as reorganizations and fighting an IRS demand for nearly $1 billion in taxes and interest. The IRS claims that the divestiture of the Matthew Bender & Co. and Mosby Inc. publishing units were sales in disguise. In U.S.

The Internal Revenue Service is unveiling a new Web site today designed to help small-business owners and the self-employed get a grip on their taxes. The site at http://www.irs.gov/smallbiz includes such features as a tutorial on creating business plans, suggestions on finding start-up financing and links to news and articles from trade magazines and other government Web sites.

For fiscal year 1987: -- 23.1 million tax returns were filed in the state of California during fiscal 1987 (tax returns for 1986). Laguna Niguel contributed 28 percent of those returns. -- Based on total number of returns filed, Laguna Niguel is the fourth-largest district in the nation. -- 6.4 million tax returns were filed in the Laguna Niguel District. -- Almost 3.4 million of those returns were from individual taxpayers (the remainder come from various types of businesses.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For fiscal year 1987 23.1 million tax returns were filed in the state of California during fiscal 1987 (tax returns for 1986). Laguna Niguel contributed 28 percent of those returns. Based on total number of returns filed, Laguna Niguel is the fourth-largest district in the nation. 6.4 million tax returns were filed in the Laguna Niguel District. Almost 3.4 million of those returns were from individual taxpayers (the remainder come from various types of businesses.

The Libertarian Party on Saturday picked a Las Vegas real estate agent and former state representative from Alaska as its 1992 presidential candidate. Andre Marrou, 52, who was the party's vice presidential candidate in 1988, said he will campaign on a promise to repeal the federal income tax and abolish the Internal Revenue Service. Marrou was selected on a 257-155 vote over Richard B. Boddie, a Huntington Beach, Calif., motivational speaker and college professor.

Since Congress beefed up whistle-blower rewards in late 2006, tips about suspected tax cheats owing at least $2 million have jumped more than tenfold, the Internal Revenue Service said. In 2008, the agency received tips on 1,246 suspected tax dodgers, each owing more than $2 million. That's up from 116 big-money tips in 2007.

The Internal Revenue Service had a moment of clarity Tuesday and backed off from its plan to crack down on personal use of office cellphones -- sort of. Just last week, the agency stirred up a hornets' nest of bad publicity by announcing it would ramp up enforcement of a long-standing -- and largely ignored -- federal law requiring that personal calls made on company cellphones be taxed as income.