Knowledge Capital for the Tax Professional

Welcome to this edition of TaxCareerDigest. This online journal provides tax professionals with timely information relating to the tax industry—news, trends, careers, and more. Through TaxCareerDigest, you will receive content relevant to you as a tax professional that is written and reviewed by experts in the tax field.

TaxTalent, the largest online network for tax professionals announced today the top Masters in Tax programs in the United States, based on a survey of over 3000 professionals holding a Masters in Tax. The results published today are the first in a two-part survey. The second part will survey Chief Tax Officers to assess what schools they believe have the best MS Tax programs. According to TaxTalent president Tony Santiago, the two-part survey will provide scholastic and corporate data rarely combined, providing keen insight from tax professionals.

Federal and state governments are turning up the heat on corporate tax audit activities in their continued efforts to capture more tax revenue, according to a recent survey of corporate tax executives conducted by KPMG LLP, the audit, tax, and advisory firm. KPMG believes that companies of all sizes should take steps to ensure they have policies and procedures in place to be fully prepared before they receive an audit notification, as the audit process can be time-consuming and strain resources for the unprepared.

On Sept. 21, 2011, the IRS announced a new Voluntary Classification Settlement Program (VCSP) for employers to voluntarily reclassify workers (or a class or group of workers) as employees for federal employment tax purposes. The VCSP allows employers to reclassify the workers as employees for future tax periods by paying 10 percent of the taxes that would normally be due if the workers were treated as employees during the last full tax year. The VCSP also limits the employer's exposure to IRS adjustments (due to misclassification) for prior years.

As was the case with telecommunications statutes and Internet access services, tax laws have not kept up with the development of services in our fast-changing economy. As a result, just as was the case for Internet services, states have been discussing plans to study, on a multistate basis, the taxation of cloud computing. Thus, a task force of the National Conference of State Legislatures has decided to study the tax implications of cloud computing and to develop a set of principles for the taxation of cloud computing.

The Washington National Tax Practice and the National Tax Service Lines held this webcast to help identify year-end tax planning and compliance opportunities. The discussion covers prospects for federal tax reform and the impact on businesses; international opportunities and traps; updates on the “State of the States” and key state tax issues around the country, as well as multi-state tax perspectives for year-end planning; accounting methods for year-end planning opportunities; and year-end cash flow considerations.