Business in brief: Tax preparers face new rules

WASHINGTON – The IRS plans to require tax preparers to pass a test and register with the government to better police a largely unregulated industry used by most taxpayers.

The Internal Revenue Service says there could be more than a million people offering tax preparation services. Most offer sound advice, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman says, but many don’t and the agency knows little about them.

The new regulations, announced Monday, won’t be in effect for the current filing season – individual tax returns are due April 15. But Shulman said tax preparers will be held to higher standards in future years as the IRS steps up its oversight to help reduce fraud and errors.

Bankruptcies up 32 percent

RALEIGH, N.C. – U.S. consumers and businesses are filing for bankruptcy at a pace that made 2009 the seventh-worst year on record, with more than 1.4 million petitions submitted, an Associated Press tally showed Monday.

The AP gathered data from the nation’s 90 bankruptcy districts and found 1.43 million filings, an increase of 32 percent from 2008. There were 116,000 recorded bankruptcies in December, up 22 percent from the same month a year before.

While experts believe some of the increase is due to a natural recovery as consumers and attorneys become accustomed to a recent overhaul of bankruptcy laws, the numbers indicate clear correlations to recession-weary regions. Arizona saw the fastest increase, a jump of 77 percent from the year before, followed by Wyoming (60 percent), Nevada (59 percent) and California (58 percent).

Oil prices start year strong

NEW YORK – Oil started the new year Monday trading above $81 a barrel, almost double what it fetched at the beginning of 2009 even though the U.S. is using much less.

Prices, which have been propped up by a weak dollar, will get even more support as winter weather chills the country. The U.S. may be using less crude, but China and other developing nations are using more to fuel their burgeoning manufacturing industries, and that can push prices higher in the U.S. as well.

Gasoline, heating oil and other fuels are already heading higher and may continue to do so as the market tests how much people are willing to pay for energy, analysts said.