Many corporate taxpayers face a new compliance task this year — filing the new Schedule UTP with their tax returns for 2010. And many of them are jittery about it, as I noted here. One concern is that IRS might use the disclosures to throw light on uncertain tax positions taken in years before 2010 that might still be under audit.

I asked Stephen O’Connell, partner, and Jeff Malo, director with business and tax advisory firm WTP Advisors, for their take on this issue. They supplied detailed responses in this email exchange:

John Cummings: I suspect that many tax and finance folks may have missed the fact that the new UTP requirement has implications for past-year returns. Is that your impression too?

WTP Advisors: Many people have overlooked the implications that Schedule UTP has for uncertain tax positions established prior to 2010. The 2010 compliance season marks the first time that corporate taxpayers with net assets equal to or exceeding $100 million are required to file Schedule UTP with their annual corporate income tax return. more

Seems like everybody’s piling on GE this week for what some have called its “tax zero-ization” tactics, after the New York Times reported (here) that the company paid no federal tax in 2010, and in fact claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

Jon Stewart joined the party last night with a blistering, and very funny, attack on the nation’s largest corporation: “Wait a minute, I thought the corporate tax rate needed to be lowered? I’m not sure you can lower it from … nothing!”

You can catch the rest of Stewart’s rant below.

But don’t miss GE’s response to its critics, which takes the Times to task for “erroneously” suggesting that the company makes use of “tax loopholes or innovative accounting.” In reality, says GE, the company has simply made full use of the foreign income deferral rule, a long-standing feature of U.S. law.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is one year old today.

Is anybody celebrating?

Did anyone even notice?

It’s doubtful that many small businesses did. They’re key players in President Obama’s healthcare reform strategy — yet, astoundingly, twelve months after the Act was signed into law, many small employers are still in the dark about key components of the legislation that are supposed to help them provide health insurance for their workforce. more

Pressure is mounting on Capitol Hill in support of the American Research and Competitiveness Act, a bipartisan bill that aims to strengthen the research and development tax credit by making it permanent and increasing the “alternative simplified credit” from 14 percent to 20 percent. The traditional method of calculating the credit would get a one-year phase-out.

“America is the world’s leading innovator — developing life-saving technologies, state-of-the art computer systems, and breakthrough manufacturing products — but we’re losing ground to competitors around the world,” asserts Congressman John B. Larson, one of the bill’s sponsors, in a statement. “It’s time we get back on the playing field by modernizing the R&D tax credit and keeping American jobs and innovation here at home.”

He’s right about the “losing ground” part. The R&D tax break is itself an example of the American flair for innovation that Larson is talking about — the United States was among the first nations to adopt research incentives, back in 1981. But since then we’ve gradually lost that lead, and by 2008 the U.S. ranked close to the bottom among OECD nations for R&D tax generosity. more

A BizTaxBuzz guest post by Joe Middleton, Tax Partner in the Boston office of accounting organization BDO.

With the March 15th tax deadline just days away, businesses and their accountants are in serious crunch time, making all of the final preparations. This tax season is especially confusing and onerous, given the copious tax legislation changes in 2010. Here are a few last-minute tips that can help you keep more money in your business and put less into Uncle Sam’s pocket: more