Tax legislation expected to be signed into law by President
Obama increases certain civil penalties by indexing those penalties
to inflation and also raises the threshold by which the IRS must
report refund claims to the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).
H.R. 5771, which extended previously expired tax provisions to
the end of 2014, also raises the threshold for JCT's mandatory
review of C corporation refund claims from $2 million to $5 million
under Section 6405. Refunds exceeding $2 million for all other
taxpayers remain the same. The change is effective for any refund
claim that has not yet been reported by the IRS to JCT as of the
date the bill is signed into law.
In addition, the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act,
which creates tax-preferred accounts similar to Section 529 plans
for certain people with disabilities, also indexes certain
fixed-dollar civil penalties to inflation under Section 1(f)(3).
Specifically, those penalties, which are
