Critics are calling for the IRS to clarify certain rules relating to the new 3.8 percent Medicare surtax on net investment income (NII) that kicks in this year. Proposed regulations were issued in December, but advocates of business owners and estates have asked the IRS to shed more light on several murky areas.

It's difficult, if not downright impossible, for some taxpayers to claim medical expense deductions on their federal income tax returns. And no wonder: With a daunting threshold of 7.5 percent of AGI to clear, your clients might not even be inclined to try.

Regardless of whether or not Congress resolves the looming "fiscal cliff" crisis or the nation is allowed to fall into the abyss, two new Medicare surtaxes will take effect on January 1, 2013.

A controversial component of the 2010 health care law imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on most medical devices, beginning in 2013. The IRS has just issued a fifty-eight-page document on implementation of the rules.

As the third year of the PPACA approaches, employers need to be aware of additional fees that will be assessed on insurers and plan administrators of self-insured plans beginning in 2013.

While the IRS is telling congressional leaders that it won't enforce the requirement under the new health care law that Americans buy insurance, accountants are considering how to advise their clients.

Two months after the Supreme Court decision that found the Affordable Care Act constitutional, compliance deadlines for the complex tax provisions that support the individual mandate are approaching rapidly.

Since the US Supreme Court decision to uphold the majority of provisions of the health care reform law, most small business owners, and the CPAs who serve them, have begun to scrutinize how the law will impact them when implemented in 2014.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has answered the biggest question related to President Obama's health care law, employers now face the uncertainties of implementing it.