2013 Academy Award Nominations Are Announced (Full List) [WSJ]
Get ready for a rash of interviews with PwC ballot counters.
As Tax Hikes Loomed, Some CEOs Sold Stock [WSJ]
As Congress mulled higher tax rates last month, dozens of corporate executives sold big chunks of stock, saving themselves millions of dollars in taxes. A Wall Street Journal review of securities filings found that 58 executives sold stock valued at $10 million or more in December as talks intensified over raising tax rates. On Jan. 1, Congress voted to increase taxes on income, capital gains and dividends for high earners. Capital gains were hit more than other types of income, according to David Kautter, the managing director of the Kogod Tax Center at American University in Washington, D.C. "So if you could move that into 2012, you saved the most of anyone." Most executives contacted by the Journal either said that tax considerations didn't influence their plans to sell stock in 2012 or didn't return calls and emails seeking comment. But a few acknowledged that the prospect of higher tax rates did influence their stock-sale decisions.
News you can use.
News tax pros can use.
I.R.S.’s Taxpayer Advocate Calls for a Tax Code Overhaul [NYT]
Lawmakers need to overhaul the tax code completely to reduce the “significant, even unconscionable, burden” placed on taxpayers just to file a tax return, the Internal Revenue Service’s ombudsman told Congress on Wednesday. In her legally required annual report to Congress, the national taxpayer advocate, Nina E. Olson, estimated that individuals and businesses spend about 6.1 billion hours a year complying with tax-filing requirements. That adds up to the equivalent of more than three million full-time workers, or more than the number of jobs on the entire federal government’s payroll.
FYI: "[T]his is an agency with an annual budget of $1.3 billion, less than the US spends on the Fish and Wildlife Service."
Come at me, science nerd bros!