Business - Taxes and Tax Season

CONCORD, N.H. - Tax evaders Ed and Elaine Brown were convicted Thursday of amassing weapons, explosives and booby traps and plotting to kill federal agents during a nine-month standoff in 2007 at their fort-like home in rural New Hampshire.

WASHINGTON - The drive to remake the nation's health care system suffered yet another setback in Congress on Thursday when a pivotal group of House Democrats demanded numerous changes in legislation the leadership was drafting on a fast track.

URUMQI, China (AFP) - China's leaders vowed on Thursday to severely punish those responsible for bloodshed in the nation's far northwest that left at least 156 people dead and exposed deep ethnic tensions.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama promised to fix health care and trim the federal budget deficit, all without raising taxes on anyone but the wealthiest Americans. It's a promise he's already broken and will likely have to break again. Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress have already increased tobacco taxes — which disproportionately hit the poor — to pay for extending health coverage to 4 million children in working low-income families.

WASHINGTON - Hoping to spur alternative vehicles, lawmakers want to double the size of tax breaks for buying cars that run on natural gas.

CONCORD, N.H. - New Hampshire tax evader Ed Brown took the stand Tuesday during his federal weapons trial, but he may not get a chance to continue.

WASHINGTON - The IRS has temporarily stopped collecting penalties from some small businesses that have been hit with big fines for not disclosing the use of questionable tax shelters.

MOSCOW (AFP) - President Dmitry Medvedev rejected pardoning jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky unless the former chief of the Yukos oil giant admitted he was guilty of fraud and tax evasion.

ATLANTA - Colin Daymude was out of work last year after his business failed and eagerly filed his taxes in mid-January, figuring he'd get his refund sooner. He was wrong.

NEW YORK - In a big break for online shoppers, Web retailers generally don't have to charge sales taxes in states where they lack a store or some other physical presence.

OLYMPIA, Wash. - As newspapers across the country struggle through a brutal economic climate, papers in Washington state are getting a tax break.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The finances of several states around the nation are sinking deeper into chaos as lawmakers struggle to work out budget differences amid a recession that has wiped out tax revenue and set the stage for dramatic cuts in service and pay for government workers.

CHICAGO - A doctor who became tangled in the corruption investigation of ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was sentenced to 18 months in prison for hiding $3 million in income from a tax collector.

WASHINGTON - Pending home sales rose in May for the fourth straight month, spurred by low prices and a first-time homebuyers tax credit, fresh evidence that the housing sector may be recovering.

HONOLULU - Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle announced that she plans to veto a gas tax increase and an Internet sales tax, which had prompted Amazon.com cut ties with island Web sites.

Taxes: The White House now refuses to rule out raising taxes on the middle class. Meanwhile, a top finance official in the previous Democratic White House suggests a tax hike is all but inevitable. Are we being set up?

MIAMI - Swiss bank UBS AG "systematically and deliberately" violated U.S. law by dispatching private bankers to recruit wealthy Americans interested in evading taxes and must be forced to reveal the identities of 52,000 of those clients, the Justice Department said in a court filing Tuesday.

MIAMI (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it was pressing ahead with its five-month-old lawsuit against UBS AG to force the Swiss bank to identify thousands of U.S. clients with secret UBS accounts.