Michael Cohn

The Financial Accounting Foundation’s board of trustees has named Joel Black, partner in charge of the audit practice at Top 100 Firm Mauldin & Jenkins, the next chair of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

PKF O’Connor Davies adds DHL&S; LBMC Technology Solutions merges with InterDyn Artis; Finkler joins HW&Co.; Gilliam Coble & Moser merges with Apple, Bell, Johnson & Co.; and Blucora plans acquisition of HK Financial Services.

BDO adds Biegel Waller; Brown Edwards expands in Virginia; Prager Metis combines with Shine & Company; Hoffman Eells merges with Abbott, Frenyea & Russell; and Mariner Wealth Advisors acquires the tax practices of David G. Miller & Associates and G.M. Bremer & Associates.

As tax authorities around the world crack down on corporate tax avoidance strategies, demand for transfer pricing advice is fueling growth in advisory services.

Financial institutions are getting ready to begin complying this year with the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s new credit losses standard, which means they will need to start making disclosures about their loan portfolios.

WithumSmith+Brown combined with KSJG CPA LLP; Wipfli LLP added Stratagem; and McHale, Caruso, Scullion & Knox joined CliftonLarsonAllen LLP.

The tight labor market prompted wage increases to accelerate at the end of the year.

The two proposals would offer guidance on implementing the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s new standards for long-duration insurance contracts and credit losses.

The Seattle-based Top 20 Firm issued a notice of a data security incident that it detected in October exposing the names and Social Security numbers of some of its clients.

The Internal Revenue Service issued the 2020 optional standard mileage rates that taxpayers and tax professionals can use to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes.

The Internal Revenue Service has signed a new agreement with Free File, Inc., formerly known as the Free File Alliance, after controversy erupted during tax season this year over the difficulty of finding free versions of consumer tax filing software like TurboTax.

The American Institute of CPAs’ Digital Assets Working Group has released a practice aid to offer guidance on how to account for and audit digital assets such as Bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is proposing a set of amendments to the auditor independence rules that have been in place since the early 2000s, allowing firms more leeway in determining conflicts of interest and shortening the lookback period for clients planning to go public.

The Internal Revenue Service issued final regulations last week on opportunity zone funds, but while they answer some of the questions, many other issues remain that are likely to prompt questions from tax clients.

The International Accounting and Assurance Standards Board has released a revised standard for identifying and assessing the risks of material misstatements.

Companies are using “clawbacks” to recover incentive compensation that was given to executives through erroneous financial reporting while lowering their effective tax rates, but clawback adoption could be having some negative consequences, according to a new study.

The Public Interest Committee, which oversees the standard-setting activities of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board, has initiated a public survey on the governance arrangements at the IPSASB to gauge perceptions of the standard-setting group’s oversight.

Business leaders will be contending with ongoing economic uncertainty and unknown future regulatory changes, along with accounting and tax changes, that could have an impact on their ability to effectively compete and achieve their financial targets in 2020 and beyond, according to a recent report.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has released a document providing information from its conversations with nearly 400 chairs of audit committees.

The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission has teamed up with Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory on publishing new guidance on managing cyber risks in a digital age.