So what does all this mean to you? Read full article to find out.

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Effective for payments made AFTER December 31, 2011, companies will be required to issue 1099-Misc for all payments. 

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Jefferson County Commission passed an act requiring all Licensable Entities to complete a new application to comply with Ordinance 1791. The new format and changes can be confusing. Do you need assistance? 

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As described in a previous post, most of the tax provisions of the recent federal healthcare legislation are not effective for several years. One notable exception is the small business health insurance credit. Read article for full details.

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Two weeks ago President Obama signed into law the HIRE (Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment) into law. Drawing less coverage than the highly publicized healthcare legislation, the HIRE Act provides several tax incentives designed to get businesses hiring the unemployed and making capital purchases. Read full blog for rundown!

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 Healthcare reform has dominated politics over the past year, and now we have a decent idea of what the final law will include, who will pay, and how. Read the full article to see how it will affect individual and employers and how this new program will be funded.

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President Obama on January 22 signed legislation that allows U.S. taxpayers making charitable contributions to Haiti relief programs before March 1, 2010

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Beginning on 2009 returns, Alabama allows an enhanced deduction for small business health insurance premiums.  The deduction is allowed for qualifying employers (those with less than 25 employees) and their qualified employees.  Qualified employees are defined as an employee who earns no more than $50,000 of wages and reports no more than $75,000 ($150,000 for married filing a joint return) of Alabama adjusted gross income.

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Between now and the end of the year, we will introduce several tax planning considerations for this year and next. We begin this series with a look at Roth IRA conversions, which are available to a greater number of taxpayers in 2010. Not only are more taxpayers eligible for Roth IRA conversions, but 2010 conversions are eligible for a deferral of the resulting income tax liability.

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Congress has passed legislation that expands the timeframe and scope of the homebuyer credit; the President’s signature is a foregone conclusion. As you probably know, the first-time homebuyer credit was set to expire November 30^th. Under this program, a first-time homebuyer would be eligible for a refundable tax credit of up to $8,000 on his or her income tax return providing the purchase took place by the program expiration date.

Under the new program, the credit for first-time homebuyers is extended to include purchases made by April 30, 2010. Providing a contract is executed by that date, the closing of the purchase must take place by June 30, 2010 in order to qualify.

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Over the last several months, I've done a substantial amount of reading to try and understand the proposed health care reform legislation. I’ve also learned much more about our current system and proposals to make health care more affordable, efficient and accessible. 

I’ll try and stay away from political commentary and avoid quoting passages from the 1,100 pages or so of proposed legislation. There are a lot of information and statistics floating around. As Mark Twain said, “There are two kinds of lies, damn lies and statistics”. Based on my reading here are three of the most interesting common sense concepts I’ve encountered:

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With healthcare, energy, and the financial markets occupying most of Congress’ attention, the estate tax has taken a backseat, but expect that to change this fall. Barring legislative action, the estate tax will go away in 2010 and return in 2011 for estates valued at greater than $1 million. Lawmakers will not allow a repeal of the estate tax, not even for a single year, and so we expect action to be taken on the estate tax issue very soon.

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The debate over healthcare reform has created the first major policy bump in the road for the Obama administration. While it seems unlikely at this point that we will see the sweeping reform that the President initially envisioned, it seems equally unlikely that we will emerge from this debate with no change on the healthcare horizon. So what does this mean for the American taxpayer?

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One byproduct of the recent economic downturn is that state and local governments are scrambling to bridge the gap between budgeted and actual collections.  One tool of the trade, of course, is the compliance examination, or audit.  Audits have long been used to spot check tax compliance, but in years past, we have found these audits to be somewhat rare, but several trends are starting to emerge.

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