Michael Cohn

Accountants who offer business valuation services can bring in new business for their practices, although perhaps not as frequently as they would get from more familiar bread-and-butter services.

The Internal Revenue Service began accepting electronically filed individual tax returns Tuesday, opening the tax season on time this year despite its latest budget crunch.

A group of Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate have introduced legislation to discourage U.S. corporations from merging with overseas companies to lower their tax bills in a strategy known as inversion that changes the company’s tax domicile.

The clawbacks on executive compensation mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act may discourage one type of accounting manipulation only to encourage another, according to a new study.

Grant Thornton reached record combined global revenues of US$4.7 billion, achieving 4.6 percent growth in U.S. dollars (or 4.9 percent in local currency terms) for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2014.

The Treasury Department and the IRS have released proposed regulations on the application of the research tax credit for internal use at companies in an effort to provide better clarity to businesses and tax professionals on the proper rules.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board has released newly revised standards for overhauling auditor reports, with the goal of enhancing the auditor’s report for investors and other financial statement users.

The Internal Revenue Service is eliminating the extended weekday hours, Saturday and President’s Day availability of its e-help desk service due to budget cuts.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued newly updated procedures for changing a business’s method of accounting for income tax purposes.

A new report finds that every state tax system, with the exception of the District of Columbia, taxes its poorest residents at significantly higher tax rates than the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers.

John Veihmeyer, the global chairman of KPMG and chairman and CEO of KPMG in the U.S., has joined the board of trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation, the parent organization of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

The Internal Revenue Service is on the verge of kicking off tax season, opening its Free File service on Friday and electronic filing next Tuesday, while dealing with the latest round of budget cuts that promise to further curtail customer service as the IRS prepares for an onslaught of questions related to the Affordable Care Act.

Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee have formed five bipartisan working groups with the goal of analyzing the tax code and developing policy recommendations for comprehensive tax reform.

A Louisiana woman and her son are facing fraud charges for their work as tax preparers.

Four of the International Federation of Accountants’ standard-setting boards are looking for new members with the right stuff.

The House voted Wednesday to approve legislation rolling back a variety of financial regulations on business, including a requirement for companies with less than $250 million in annual revenue to file their financials in Extensible Business Reporting Language format with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Taxpayers who file their tax returns on paper could face delays of a week or more on their refunds this tax season because of budget cuts, Internal Revenue Service commissioner John Koskinen warned.

The average fee for preparing a tax return, including an itemized Form 1040 with Schedule A and a state tax return, will increase a few dollars to $273 this year, a 4.6 percent increase over the average fee last year, which was $261, according to a survey by the National Society of Accountants.

A group calling itself the National Academy of Public Accounting Professionals is now accepting nominations for the 2015 "Top 10 Public Accounting Professionals" awards in each state.

WithumSmith+Brown can always be counted on to release a fun video every year to coincide with their annual State of the Firm celebration, and this year the firm pulled out all the stops.