IRS

On Thursday Microsoft Corp stated that a review of its US tax obligations in past years by a government would negatively impact its financial statements in case it is not resolved in its favor.

Among other things the Internal Revenue Service was looking at Microsoft's use of transfer pricing, or methods of booking prices and sales between subsidiaries which allows big companies to avail of opportunities to report earnings in lower-tax jurisdictions.

 It became known about new scam targeting tax-payers. Recently the users started receiving messages allegedly sent by the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System. The scammers say that all the tax payments made by the customer through EFTPS were rejected. 

Wells Fargo has lost a lawsuit over more than $115 million in tax deductions based on complex transactions that a Court of Federal Claims ruling said lacked "economic substance."

In a ruling issued Friday, the court sharply criticized the large, California-based bank's use of 26 sale and lease transactions with public transit agencies and other tax-exempt entities in 2002.

 The key informant in the U.S. tax evasion case against Swiss bank UBS AG faces prison next year, but his harsher-than-expected treatment by the U.S. Justice Department will undermine efforts to expose secretive offshore tax havens, lawyers and whistle-blower advocates say.

Bradley Birkenfeld, a 44-year-old U.S. citizen, has been hailed by his attorneys and prosecutors alike as pivotal to the tax case against UBS, his former employer.