Yesterday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced the results of its tax amnesty program that ended on Oct. 15. It turns out some 14,700 taxpayers came forward to report previously undisclosed foreign bank accounts under the voluntary disclosure program the IRS implemented following the U.S. government's settlement with Swiss Bank UBS earlier this year.

If you haven't navigated around through Recovery.gov since the Recovery Board added the recipient reports on Oct. 30, the truth is it isn't the easiest site to use. Having access to the recipient reports is great (and rather historic), but the data are stored in various disparate sections of the website, and searching the site to find exactly what you're looking for is tedious. The real problem, though, is that the site's help section isn't very helpful, since it only provides general background info on the Recovery Act, and nothing about how to actually use the website.

As we near the end of the calendar year, a familiar drone has been absent this year in discussions about tax policy - the dreaded Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). Despite early action this year that has put the issue off until 2010, the problems with the AMT that make it such a pain still exist.

A story in The Hill this morning relays an increasingly likely scenario in Congress: legislators will use an omnibus appropriations bill to finish spending work this year. The article cites the molasses-like speed at which the Senate has worked to pass its remaining appropriations bills. With the second stopgap funding measure set to expire on Dec. 18, and the Thanksgiving holiday intervening, the window of opportunity just to pass and conference an omnibus bill – let alone the four Senate appropriations bills that remain – is quickly closing.