For tax purposes, military pay is treated like regular income, while parts of National Guard pay have special treatment. Before the passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, National Guard members could deduct 100 percent of their travel expenses.

Companies are looking first to automation before moving their finance functions offshore, even as manufacturing and customer-service jobs are sent overseas.Advertisement

Enron Task Force prosecutor Kathryn Ruemmler wrapped up the government’s case against Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, former chief executives of the bankrupt company, in a four-hour presentation on Monday in Houston, asking the jury to hold both men accountable for the choices they made and the lies they told. Defense attorneys, who presented their arguments on Tuesday, admitted bad business judgment on the part of their clients but emphatically denied criminal intent or conduct that would support the government’s charges of conspiracy and securities fraud against the two men.

In what offers the faint hint of another area where accountants can assist small and midsized (SMB) clients, a government and business study has found that the costs of complying with state sales tax regulations is a financial burden for all retail businesses and hits especially hard on the smallest.

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) has told members that a computer hard drive containing names, addresses and Social Security numbers has been lost.Advertisement

The Sacramento, California-based Nehemiah Corp., a nonprofit mortgage assistance program, and 184 similar programs around the country, have been accused by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of operating a down payment scam and are no longer eligible for tax exempt status, the Sacramento Bee reports.

The deadline for large tax-exempt organizations to electronically file federal information returns, including Form 990, with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is May 15. Exempt organizations are required to file these returns electronically if they have $100 million in total assets and file at least 250 returns per year – including income, excise, employment tax and information returns, such as forms W-2 and 1099.

Charles Collins manages Taxware’s relationships with taxing authorities and legislative bodies and is a frequent speaker on state and local tax issues. He was employed by the North Carolina Department of Revenue for 32 years before coming to his current post, serving as the Director of the Sales and Use Tax Division for his last ten years there. While there, he also served as the Assistant Director of the Audit and Collection Division. Collins served as Co-Chairman of the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SSTP) for two-and-a-half years.