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According to the IRS companies are allowed to file what are known as "consolidated returns" - returns filed assuming that they are part of the same parent corporation and assuming that one of the companies involved is at least 80% owned by the other company.

Is your organization on the cutting edge? So often when it comes to dealing with tax compliance issues organizations segment their operations - U.S. Federal Reporting is one category; State & Local Reporting is another with Sales & Use and Unclaimed Property Issues often further seperated out from there; and, of course, there is the Non-Resident Alien compliance and reporting concerns as yet another.

On February 18, 2012 a worker classification related lawsuit was filed in federal district court against LEO Pharma Inc. In this instance sales representatives are suing LEO Pharma because they were misclassified by LEO Pharma as salaried exempt employees and thus not eligible to receive overtime pay which they were otherwise entitled under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Early this month, on February 1st, a former unpaid intern for the Hearst Corporation's fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar filed a lawsuit against Hearst. The intern claims she was as an unpaid intern but was forced to work as a full time employee without being compensated for her work, thus violating federal and state wage, hour, and tax laws regarding the proper classification of interns vs. workers.

Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain announced earlier this month that they will be partnering more closely with the U.S. in terms of sharing information required by FATCA, or the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. FATCA became law in 2010 with the express goal of helping the Internal Revenue Service identify American's hidden overseas assets. Foreign financial institutions will play a key role in FATCA's implementation.

According to the IRS audits were up significantly last year among corporations with assets of $250 million or more. All told, last fiscal year the IRS audited nearly 30% of such corporations.What's more, once an audit is initiated it can often drag on for years...