Ever since Sarbanes-Oxley dragged tax departments into the limelight, the dynamic between tax leaders and finance chiefs has been evolving apace. How do things stand now? I asked Jacien Steele, tax partner with Deloitte Tax LLP. A main focus of Steele’s role at Deloitte is on elevating the tax agenda in the office of the CFO. more

Ever wondered how much it costs U.S. businesses to comply with the nation’s tax laws?

The long-awaited release Friday of a report from the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, headed by Paul Volcker, provides a rough answer: north of $40 billion per year, or more than 12 percent of the revenues collected.

That’s just one nugget from many in the report, which sheds a disturbing light on the tangle of dilemmas and inefficiencies that the tax code foists on companies of all sizes. more

If your organization’s board is still in the dark about recent IRS moves targeting uncertain tax positions, I’d suggest (at the risk of nagging – see my blogs here and here) that it’s time to enlighten them.

You probably don’t want to phrase it in terms of: (a) the IRS is basically trying to get corporates to do their work for them; (b) it’s a case of “give us more rope to hang you with”; (c) the whole idea is to give the IRS full access to your innermost tax deliberations so that they can grab the full amount of the maximum tax adjustment that will likely be required in the proposed UTP Schedule. more

Love it or hate it, we’ve all gotten used to the annual ballyhoo about Tax Freedom Day, the Tax Foundation’s calculation of how long, on average, Americans have to work to pay their federal, state, and local taxes. But most of us are less familiar with Cost of Government Day, the brainchild of the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation and the Center for Fiscal Accountability, which adds another element to the mix: the cost of compliance with the regulations imposed by government authorities at all levels. more

It’s gracious — somewhat, I guess — of billionaire private equity honcho Stephen Schwarzman to say he’s sorry for describing President Obama’s business tax policies as “a war … like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939,” as quoted in a New York Post story (hat tip to Paul Caron’s TaxProf blog). It’s just not good enough, though, on three counts: more