On Friday, January 15, TPC and the University of Southern California law school will be running an all-day program at USC called Train Wreck: A Conference on America's Long-term Fiscal Crisis. The title pretty much says it all.

Nice to hear the IRS is finally going to regulate tax preparers. For years, fly-by-night tax prep outfits have been doing, how shall we say, a less-than-stellar job filling out returns for the confused and vulnerable. But cracking down on those seasonal shysters who abuse the system is only attacking a symptom of the real disease, which is our insanely complex tax code.

I’m procrastinating (uh, I mean working) and came across this item about Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback megachurch in California and bestselling author. He says he “reverse tithes”—gives 90% of his income to his church.

Just when you thought Congress would never solve its tax and spending problems, it has taken a bold step forward: It has suspended the laws of nature and arithmetic starting January 1, 2010. Just wait until you see what it has in mind:

If you’re single, not in great health, and are worth a lot but not a really huge lot, you could do your heirs a favor and die today or tomorrow. Sure, you may want to hang around to ring in the New Year but that could cost the beneficiaries of your will a chunk of change.

Let’s face it, from a tax policy perspective, 2009 was a bust. Except for creating a bunch of new credits in the name of economic stimulus, Washington pretty much ignored the revenue code. 2010 will be very different. Facing trillions of dollars of expiring Bush-era tax cuts, President Obama and Congress will be forced to make some critical decisions in the new year.

As 2009 draws to an icy conclusion, Tax Vox is pleased to announce its Third Annual Lump of Coal Award for the worst tax ideas of the year. So many choices. So little time.

Two cheers for San Francisco. At least one agency in the city by the bay has been trying to require non-profits that receive public funds to show concrete results in return for the money. This sort of performance-based budgeting has been all the rage among consultants for years, but San Francisco is doing it. And it is not easy.

Congress is having one if its periodic infatuations with the idea of using an independent commission to push it to do what it clearly does not want to do—tackle the deficit and long-term debt in the only ways possible, by cutting spending and raising taxes.

Thanks to Senate gridlock, taxpayers engaged in estate planning will suffer whiplash over coming months as the federal estate tax disappears and reappears, possibly unexpectedly and retroactively. When the Senate refused to act Wednesday, it opened the door for the estate tax to disappear in two weeks--although no one knows for how long. Not only will the tax end, but the gift tax rate will fall to 35 percent. And, hardly noticed by most, only some assets inherited in 2010 will get “step-up” in basis.