As the United States awaits to see how President-elect Obama implements his campaign promise to increase the tax burden on those earning more than $250,000 per year, KPMG has released a new study (Individual Income Tax Rate Survey 2008) documenting a downward trend in the highest tax rates in 87 countries over the past six years, from 31.3% in 2003 to 28.8% in 2008:

Taxcut.com offers helpful tips to check the facts on tax return and tax policies. Currently the tax policies of John McCain and Barack Obama are the focus of public attention. Here is the current situation on some tax facts provided by IRS through taxcut.com.

April 15 is the deadline for filing a federal tax return. But not everybody can meet that deadline. If you need more time to get your paperwork in, make sure you file a Form 4868, Automatic Extension of Time to File, with the IRS by the April 15 deadline and you'll get an automatic six-month extension of time to file.

Remember last year's fiasco when TurboTax users flooded Intuit's e-filing servers at the last minute? The surge of data caused overtaxed (pun intended) servers, which meant that transactions that should take minutes took hours. Fortunately, the IRS waived penalties for users, and Intuit even refunded e-filing charges for affected users.

The 2008 federal "Tax Day" is Tuesday, April 15, prompting procrastinators to cram in order to make the tax deadline. However, taxpayers can file IRS extension forms before tax deadline.

The Internal Revenue Service today urged taxpayers eligible for the economic stimulus payment to file their tax return now in order to get their payment in a timely manner.

According to the tax returns made public by Hillary Clinton, she made $109 million since leaving the white house in 2000.

Duke Law students again this year will prepare tax returns at no cost to Durham residents who earned less than $35,000 last year.

Barack Obama, who presently is on vacation in Virgin Islands with his family, released the tax returns of his family for the last six years on Tuesday. The Democratic presidential candidate urges that his rival Sen. Hillary Clinton do the same and make her tax returns public record as well.

The IRS has posted a schedule indicating when tax payers, if eligible, will receive their tax payments. Keep in mind that these are estimates and the IRS could very well not meet this schedule. The schedule is based on the final two digits of your Social Security number. If you file jointly, use the last two digits of the primary filer’s Social Security number.

The Internal Revenue Service announced the launch of a simple electronic tax filing system that small tax-exempt organizations may use to comply with a new law requiring them to file an annual return.

Agricultural industry taxpayers, farmers and fishermen, who electronically file Form 1040 returns with Form 4136, Credit for Federal Tax Paid on Fuels, must wait until March 3 to e-file the newly-revised Form 4136.