Congress considering ban on tax tips patents

[flashl]

Tax strategies may lose federal imprimatur
Congress considering ban on patents on methods for minimizing tax bite; patent office's lack of tax expertise cited

Congress is seriously considering a future ban on patents covering strategies that help taxpayers reduce the taxes they owe. While chances of a comprehensive tax package being enacted during an election year may be slim, this is one change that stands a decent chance of making it through the legislative mill, judging from its progress so far.

Lawyers, accountants, and regulators alike warn that the granting of patents for tax strategies threatens to mislead taxpayers, undermine congressionally created incentives and generally increase tax compliance costs in the economy. “ also provide additional incentives for tax advisors to "invent' tax minimization strategies, an activity with no redeeming social value,” wrote Nina Olson, the IRS's national taxpayer advocate. In the 2007 annual report she filed with Congress last month, Ms. Olson recommended that it eliminate tax strategy patents.

Ever since 1998, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled business methods could be patented, tax advisers have been taking their creative wares to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for registration. The office has already issued 62 such patents and more than 100 other applications are pending. The trend may soon radically change the ground rules for both corporate and individual tax planning.

...

The issue was brought to the fore last spring when John Rowe, the former CEO of Aetna, agreed to settle a patent infringement lawsuit filed against him by Wealth Transfer Group, an estate planning firm based in Florida. The firm received a patent in 2003 for a commonly used estate planning device called a grantor retained annuity trust. The vehicle enables taxpayers to reduce estate and gift tax liabilities and can be set up to hold a variety of different assets. Wealth Transfer's twist on the trust was its use of the non-qualified stock options typically received by executives like Mr. Rowe.

Financal Week

Sounds like a winner, I am going to patent, "Pay taxes on April 15th".

[dbackjon]

1. The idea that these could ever be patented is plain dumb

[icnorth]

2. Before I expand on your statement to include

"before 11:59 pm" would you consider this plagiarism or patent infringement? ;)

[flashl]

3. My failure to add 99 subparagraphs means there will be two patents. Rats!

[flashl]

4. Patent madness

Motorola-RIM Spat: You Infringed! No You Infringed!
Posted by Dan Slater

It may not be the Jets versus the Sharks, or, for that matter, the Greasers versus the Socs, but there’s a turf war unfolding in wireless land. And it’s playing out — where else? — in the courts.

Cell-phone giant Motorola and BlackBerry-maker RIM exchanged lawsuits on Saturday over a series of cross-licensing agreements gone bad. The skirmish arrived amid Motorola’s attempts to capture marketshare for wireless email devices — traditionally RIM’s turf — and RIM’s push to sell more BlackBerrys to cellphone users — traditionally the province of Motorola.
WSJ