NEWS FROM THE NATIONAL TAX CONFERENCE IN WASHINGTON

I just returned from the National Tax Conference in Washington D.C. It was a great conference in that the speakers are inside the belt-way and can give us some indication of what they think might be happening in 2010.

A lot of the talk was on the possibility of tax increases and the impact that tax increases would have on the upcoming 2010 elections. No currently seated congress person wants to go home and say, “vote for me” but at the same time having voted for a tax increase. That being said, the consensus was that the politicians will just let President Bush’s tax reductions expire at the end of 2010. By doing this they can say that they did not vote for a tax increase. I’m having a little trouble understanding the logic because it seems if taxes go up it would be an increase, but apparently the politicians can put some kind of spin on this.

There was a lot of talk about health care reform. There were three bills in the House and two bills in the Senate and they were trying to narrow these down to one bill that everyone could vote on. Since I returned back to the office, Harry Reid, majority leader of the Senate, has decided on the bill that he wants to bring forward. It’s amazing the cost of this whole thing. According to the congregational budget office, the total cost would be $1 trillion $55 billion dollars. The House bill is at about $894 billion dollars.

It does look like the IRS is going to be more aggressive with 1099’s and 1099 matching. They are looking under every rock to try to find money to reduce the deficit.

More on the session in future issues.