General Explanations of the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2011 Revenue Proposals (PDF; 673 KB)
Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury (Office of Tax Policy)
Includes details of the administration’s taxation policies.

The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax (PDF; 605 KB)
Source: Congressional Budget Office
From CBO Director’s Blog:

The number of people who will be subject to the alternative minimum tax (AMT) will increase dramatically in 2010 under current law. About 4.5 million taxpayers were affected by the AMT in 2009. That number has been kept relatively small by annual modifications to the AMT rules, but the most recent modifications expired at the end of calendar year 2009. Consequently, about 27 million taxpayers (see figure below)—one out of every six taxpayers—will be affected by the AMT in 2010, paying on average an additional $3,900 in tax. Nearly every married taxpayer with income between $100,000 and $500,000 will owe some alternative tax.

New Tax Guide Features Recovery Tax Breaks; Helps People Save on their 2009 Taxes
Source: Internal Revenue Service

Taxpayers can get the most out of new recovery tax breaks and get a jump on preparing their 2009 federal income tax returns by consulting a newly revised comprehensive tax guide now available on IRS.gov.

Publication 17, Your Federal Income Tax, features details on taking advantage of new tax-saving opportunities, such as the making work pay credit for most workers, American opportunity credit for parents and college students, energy credits for homeowners going green, first-time homebuyer credit, sales or excise tax deduction for new car buyers, and the expanded child tax credit and earned income tax credit for low- and moderate-income workers. This useful 308-page guide also provides more than 6,000 interactive links to help taxpayers quickly get answers to their questions.

Publication 17 has been published annually by the IRS for more than 65 years and has been available on the IRS Web site since 1996. As in prior years, this publication is packed with basic tax-filing information and tips on what income to report and how to report it, figuring capital gains and losses, claiming dependents, choosing the standard deduction versus itemizing deductions, and using IRAs to save for retirement.

+ Full Document (PDF; 6.3 MB)

National Taxpayer Advocate Delivers Annual Report to Congress; Focuses on Taxpayer Service, Collection, Preparer Regulation
Source: Internal Revenue Service

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson today released her annual report to Congress, warning that increased demands on the IRS have eroded the agency’s ability to meet taxpayer service needs and expressing concern that IRS collection practices are harming financially struggling taxpayers without producing significant revenue gains.

In the preface to the report, Olson noted that she is required by statute to identify taxpayer problems, but she wrote that “the IRS in many respects has had an extremely successful year.” She cited, in particular, the IRS’s success in implementing significant legislative changes designed to stimulate the economy in the midst of the filing season.
Among the key issues and themes identified in this year’s report:

Telephone Service. The report designates the IRS’s declining ability to answer telephone calls as the most serious problem facing taxpayers. Olson notes that the IRS has set a target for FY 2010 of answering only 71 percent of calls from taxpayers seeking to speak with a customer service representative about account questions, down from 83 percent in FY 2007.

“In other words, the IRS is planning to be unable to answer about three of every 10 calls it receives,” Olson said, adding that the IRS expects those who get through will have to wait an average of 12 minutes. The report states that this projected level of service is barely above the level of 69 percent notched in 1998, when Congress passed the landmark IRS Restructuring and Reform Act due in large part to concerns about inadequate taxpayer service. “This level of service is unacceptable,” Olson wrote.

Examination and Collection Issues. The report contains a detailed assessment of IRS examination and collection practices, concluding that many practices have been developed piecemeal and that the IRS lacks an effective overarching strategy to maximize voluntary compliance. The report also concludes that IRS collection practices often harm taxpayers without producing revenue.

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Bush Tax Cuts, AMT Lead Tax Foundation List of Decade’s Top Tax Stories
Source: Tax Foundation

The tax cuts signed into law by President Bush in 2001 and 2003 were the top tax story of the decade, according to a top-ten list that the Tax Foundation released today.

The annual Congressional flurry to enact a patch to prevent millions of taxpayers from paying the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) also made the list.

“The years 2000 through 2009 were a decade marked by major tax cuts as well as major spending obligations,” said Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge, who joined the organization at the beginning of the decade. “We can expect the next 10 years to contain massive tax increases, both because of large federal deficits and what could be the most significant tax change since the Bush tax cuts – one that could happen within the next 30 days: tax increases to fund health care reform.”

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