Tax Law

CHARLOTTE Pushing constitutional amendments tends to be the province of Republican presidents: to mandate balanced budgets, for instance, or to make abortion illegal. But President Obama has been both speaking privately and flirting openly with the notion of amending the Constitution. His goal would be to overturn the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision and get the biggest-money checks out of politics. Obama advisers have been edging up to this for months. In February, urging donors to open their checkbooks to...

APPLE HAS BROUGHT American consumers such popular wonders as the iPad, iPod and iPhone and earned billions of dollars in the process . It's in hot water with Congress now, however, because of something it has not done: regularly paid the top U.S. corporate income tax rate of 35 percent on every dollar it earns around the world. From 2009 to 2012, in fact, Apple managed to avoid taxes on nearly a third of its worldwide net profits, some $30 billion, which were booked to its Irish subsidiaries , according to a report by the U.S. Senate...

Folks, deep breath time. This is not the end of the Obama presidency. It's a bad stretch with an unfortunate confluence of unfortunate events. None of which will make the first paragraph — not even the first page — of the account of the Obama administration in the history books. Let's tick through the trifecta of scandals and what they tell us — about the foibles of this administration, about the hidden operations of bureaucracies, about the modern practice of politics. Benghazi.

CAIRO — Egypt's president signed a new tax law Tuesday that cuts the amount paid by poorer Egyptians in the latest move aimed at reforming the country's economy. The changes, which are more favorable than the previous tax law for the country's most vulnerable, could boost Islamists in parliamentary elections slated for later this year. The interim parliament, led by Islamist allies of President Mohammed Morsi, approved the measure last week. Ahmed el-Sayyed el-Naggar, an...

WASHINGTON — Dozens of tea party groups and other conservative organizations of the kind subjected to improper scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service operated with small budgets and rarely displayed overt partisan activities, according to an Associated Press review of public tax filings by 93 such activist groups. A few groups built million-dollar operations and political ties that could have been legitimate grounds for IRS investigation, tax law experts said. The AP reviewed 990 tax returns...

Wells Fargo's deal for Wachovia could cost the federal government billions of dollars in lost revenue as the San Francisco company takes advantage of a new change in federal tax regulations designed to encourage bank mergers. The change was made Tuesday by the Treasury Department, one day after Wachovia agreed to be rescued by Citigroup , and two days after Wells Fargo walked away from the table, leaving Citigroup as the only bidder. With the change in place, Wells Fargo renewed its pursuit of...

Sometimes Congress hands out a break that is so generous it seems it must be a mistake. This one's a doozy: the ability to receive a tax-free inheritance of $400 million or more. Thanks to two recent changes in the tax code, investors with huge 401(k) accounts have a way to turn them into tax-free income for their grandchildren's lifetimes. This is by far the biggest estate-planning break on record, created even as lawmakers debate over which tax giveaways should be killed to help shore up...

The District has forgone about $15 million in property taxes since 2007, when the city finance office quietly reinterpreted a law governing the handling of the city's largest property transactions, a top deputy to Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi testified Wednesday. A D.C. Council hearing provided the first accounting of the effect of a dispute over whether a 1.45 percent "deed recordation tax" should be levied on the full amount of commercial property refinancings, or whether the original loan...

Amazon has offered the state of California a proposal that would bring 7,000 jobs to the state. The catch? They want the state to hold off on implementing its new online sales tax until 2014. According to the Sacramento Bee , unnamed sources "familiar with the situation" said Amazon representatives met with legislative staff and lobbyists Tuesday and offered to bring six distribution centers to the state if the law, which requires that online retailers collect sales tax in the state, doesn't go into...

CAIRO — Egypt's president signed a new tax law Tuesday that cuts the amount paid by poorer Egyptians in the latest move aimed at reforming the country's economy. The changes, which are more favorable than the previous tax law for the country's most vulnerable, could boost Islamists in parliamentary elections slated for later this year. The interim parliament, led by Islamist allies of President Mohammed Morsi, approved the measure last week. Ahmed el-Sayyed...

Heavy-handedness by the Internal Revenue Service is not confined to political groups seeking Section 501(c)(4) status [" Report details IRS scrutiny ," front page, May 13]. Many purely charitable groups experience exactly the same inordinate delays and demands for irrelevant information, particularly if they commit the sin of aspiring to provide relief in other countries. Such Section 501(c)(3) requests, of which I have handled a number in my practice as a tax attorney, are routinely selected for "development" and placed in a queue for...

WASHINGTON — Dozens of tea party groups and other conservative organizations of the kind subjected to improper scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service operated with small budgets and rarely displayed overt partisan activities, according to an Associated Press review of public tax filings by 93 such activist groups. A few groups built million-dollar operations and political ties that could have been legitimate grounds for IRS investigation, tax law experts said. The AP reviewed 990 tax returns...

Folks, deep breath time. This is not the end of the Obama presidency. It's a bad stretch with an unfortunate confluence of unfortunate events. None of which will make the first paragraph — not even the first page — of the account of the Obama administration in the history books. Let's tick through the trifecta of scandals and what they tell us — about the foibles of this administration, about the hidden operations of bureaucracies, about the modern practice of politics. Benghazi.

D.C. Council candidate Matthew Frumin said Monday he will go back and examine whether he benefited from a resident-based tax break on his Northwest home in 2000, when records show he lived in Michigan most of the year. Frumin, an attorney seeking an at-large seat in the April 23 special election, purchased a house in American University Park in 1992. But in 2000, Frumin and his wife registered to vote and rented a house in Bloomfield, Mich., so he could run for Congress in his hometown.

It's tax season. If you'd hoped to file right away to get a quick refund, you may be out of luck if you are claiming such things as an energy-efficient-home credit, residential energy credits in general or a mortgage interest credit. That's because Congress's last-minute fiscal cliff agreement in early January forced the IRS to get a late start on modifying the forms associated with those programs to reflect the tax law changes. Those forms are not expected to be available until late February or early March.

After months of negotiations, Congress passed the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 on Jan. 1, putting off for now worries about a "fiscal cliff. " The bill, which was signed by President Obama on Jan. 2, raised rates for capital gains and estate taxes, while extending a number of tax credits, including those for college tuition, renewable energy, and research and development. Here, a snapshot of local companies — ranging from venture capitalists to railroad operators — that stand to be...

It's tax season. If you'd hoped to file right away to get a quick refund, you may be out of luck if you are claiming such things as an energy-efficient-home credit, residential energy credits in general or a mortgage interest credit. That's because Congress's last-minute fiscal cliff agreement in early January forced the IRS to get a late start on modifying the forms associated with those programs to reflect the tax law changes. Those forms are not expected to be available until late February or early March.

Heavy-handedness by the Internal Revenue Service is not confined to political groups seeking Section 501(c)(4) status [" Report details IRS scrutiny ," front page, May 13]. Many purely charitable groups experience exactly the same inordinate delays and demands for irrelevant information, particularly if they commit the sin of aspiring to provide relief in other countries. Such Section 501(c)(3) requests, of which I have handled a number in my practice as a tax attorney, are routinely selected for "development" and placed in a...

PARIS — France's Constitutional Council, in a stinging political rebuke to the Socialist government, ruled Saturday that an emblematic new law that imposes a 75 percent tax rate on earnings above $1.3 million is unconstitutional. The ruling was based on technical grounds, and President Francois Hollande's government pledged to make the necessary adjustments. But Hollande had made the 75 percent rate an anti-rich symbol during his presidential campaign, and, as a result, the council's...

Business interests focused on the debate over the looming "fiscal cliff" are most concerned with making sure there's a timely deal — any deal. The details of the compromise are less important than getting an agreement in place that removes the danger of a one-two punch to the economy that would flow from trillions of dollars' worth of tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts set to go into effect next year. If that crisis is averted, however, expect a more intense focus on the details of corporate tax...