The court's 4-3 ruling — the first such decision by Georgia's top appellate court — found that Expedia must collect hotel occupancy taxes from its customers and pay them to the city of Columbus.

An attorney representing Columbus said the ruling doesn't say whether Expedia owes back taxes, and said that issue may be decided by a lower court.

While the Georgia court's ruling doesn't apply to cases in other states, city attorneys say it could bring fresh momentum to dozens of other lawsuits around the country brought by frustrated officials who say the online travel scheme is depriving them of tax dollars.

"Decisions like this are persuasive if nothing else," said Wade Tomlinson, who represented the city of Columbus in the lawsuit. "Other courts will look at it, consider it and apply it."

Many similar complaints have been dismissed by federal or state judges, but attorneys say several are still pending, including lawsuits filed by officials or customers in Atlanta, Baltimore, San Antonio and a federal class action lawsuit filed on behalf of Georgia cities. Similar complaints have also been filed in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Anaheim, Calif.

The lawsuits hinge on the complicated pricing schemes used by Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity and other online travel sites.

When consumers make reservations at the sites, they pay more for a room than the online outfits pay the hotels for the room, allowing the online companies to pocket the difference.

Obama's two-part plan, which he will announce later Monday at the White House, also embraces 800 additional federal agents to enforce the tax code.

The president's proposal would eliminate some tax deductions for companies that earn profits in countries with low tax rates, as well as consider U.S. citizens who use tax havens in the Bahamas or Cayman Islands guilty of violating U.S. tax laws. If Obama wins congressional approval for the changes — and he faces a challenge on Capitol Hill — the new enforcement initiative could yield $210 billion in tax revenue over the next decade.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was to join Obama for the comments. The White House released details of the plan earlier Monday.

White House officials acknowledged the political challenges facing the plan. The administration won't seek a complete repeal of overseas tax benefits and, although the rule changes are narrower than some anticipated, business leaders still oppose them as a tax hike. Obama aides countered that the plan is a step toward the massive overhaul of international financial regulations that the president has promised.

In exchange, Obama said he was willing to make permanent a research tax credit that was to expire at the end of the year and is popular with businesses. Officials estimate that making the tax credits permanent would cost taxpayers $74.5 billion over the next decade.

The three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a tax court ruling that threw out the deduction claimed by Stephen Jones for material he collected as lead defense counsel in McVeigh's trial for the 1995 bombing that killed 168 people.

Jones told The Associated Press on Monday that the courts agreed the value of the gift is not deductible, but the appellate court rejected what Jones characterized as "ill-tempered language" in the tax court's opinion of his case.

Jones said the Internal Revenue Service treated him and his wife, Sherrel, with "a cavalier, condescending, unprofessional attitude and behavior from beginning to end."

He said he asked that the agency's Oklahoma City office be disqualified from the case because some IRS workers there had experienced losses in the bombing, which injured hundreds of people and damaged areas of downtown.

A spokesman for the IRS in Dallas, Clay Sanford, declined comment on the case because of federal disclosure regulations that prohibit public discussion of individual tax matters.

An appraiser hired by Jones valued the materials at $294,877, and Jones and his wife claimed a tax deduction for that amount. He said he received the deduction for four years before the IRS rejected it and sent Jones a notice of tax deficiency for $14,785.

In upholding the tax court ruling, the Denver-based appellate court said the size of the deduction Jones could claim was limited to the amount he had paid or invested, which was none.

Jones gave the prosecution and defense materials to the University of Texas, which he attended as an undergraduate. The archive includes transcripts, FBI reports, correspondence, videotapes and other materials.

The Internal Revenue Service will allow victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s investment fraud to claim a lucrative tax deduction related to the bulk of their losses, the I.R.S. commissioner testified Tuesday morning before the Senate Finance Committee .

The commissioner, Douglas H. Shulman, told lawmakers that the agency was offering guidelines for taxpayers who are victims of losses from Ponzi schemes like Mr. Madoff’s.

The plan represents the first time that the I.R.S. has come forward with a policy regarding how it will treat Mr. Madoff’s victims. The subject has been a point of debate and anxiety for the victims and their accountants, given the uncertainty and lack of clarity in the tax code over how the matter should be dealt with.

The plan, which applies to victims of all Ponzi schemes, is likely to provide major relief to the victims of Mr. Madoff, who pleaded guilty last week to orchestrating what prosecutors say is the largest Ponzi scheme ever — one that could reach $65 billion and cover 13,000 investors.

The plan would ease existing rules governing what are known as theft-loss deductions, which are losses claimed by investors who are cheated by their investment advisers and others in Ponzi schemes and other frauds.

Under the plan, which has been reviewed by the congressional offices, the I.R.S. will allow investors who are not suing Mr. Madoff to claim a theft-loss deduction equal to 95 percent of their investments, minus any withdrawals, reinvested gains and payouts from Securities Investor Protection Corporation, the government-chartered fund set up to help protect investors of failed brokerage firms.

Investors who are suing Mr. Madoff, and who thus may have some prospect of recovery, can claim a deduction equal to 75 percent of their investments.

Former Rep. Wes Cooley, who represented Oregon's 2nd District in Congress from 1995 to 1997, is charged with six counts of concealment money-laundering and one count of subscribing to a false tax return.

He is accused of participating in the scheme from December 1999 until April 2004. In 2002 alone, Cooley took $1.1 million from investors, laundered it to conceal the fraud scheme and falsified his tax return to avoid paying taxes, prosecutors said.

If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 38 years in prison.

According to the indictment, Cooley and two other men, George Tannous and De Elroy Beeler Jr., lured victims into purchasing unregistered stock in Bidbay.com Inc. by telling them the company would be acquired by eBay for $20 per share. Cooley was the vice president of Bidbay.

Prosecutors said eBay had no plans to buy the company and even sued Bidbay.com for trademark infringement over the use of "bay" in its name.

Tannous and Beeler both pleaded guilty to charges related to the case.

Cooley's attorney, Richard Moss, said his client cooperated with the investigation but might have difficulty recalling things that happened several years ago.

"He's 76, but he's not a young 76," Moss said. "He's not in good health."

In 2005, a civil jury in St. Louis found Cooley and Tannous lied to investors in the Internet startup. The two were ordered to pay $2.2 million to 11 investors.

Cooley denied any involvement in fraud, testifying that he had suffered three strokes and could remember nothing from the previous 15 years of his life. He now lives in Palm Springs.

Citing separation of powers, the state's 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento ruled Wednesday it could not intervene because Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had not signed the bill into law.

The lawsuit was filed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, with support from most Republican state lawmakers. It argued that the Democratic majority acted illegally when it passed the tax increases because it did so with a simple majority vote.

The state Constitution requires a two-thirds majority for tax increases.

John Coupal, president of the taxpayers association, said the group was considering an appeal to the state Supreme Court and a new lawsuit in federal court because the vote violated the constitutional rights of the Republican minority members.

"We are still looking at this case for potential appeals because we believe this issue needs to be resolved," he said.

Schwarzenegger vetoed the $18 billion proposal, which included a mix of tax increases and spending cuts as a way to start closing California's $42 billion budget deficit. The governor said the package didn't make enough labor and environmental concessions.