Michael Cohn

A new series of research reports from the American Institute of CPAs and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants examine the various weak links in a company’s value chain and what business leaders can do about them.

Nine individuals have been indicted in two separate conspiracies in Portland, Ore., each of them claiming more than $1 million in fraudulent tax refunds, according to the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation unit.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has been questioning some of the Big Four accounting firms about their policy of requiring their partners to agree to retire at a specific age.

The International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board has approved its Conceptual Framework for General Purpose Financial Reporting by Public Sector Entities.

Congress made some moves this week in working on tax extenders, even though it is not expected to pass any legislation until after the midterm elections.

Maintaining healthy client relationships is important for CPAs, particularly when their tax clients need some help with their tax planning that may require outside expertise.

Thomson Reuters has released a tax-planning treatise for estate planners, Tax Planning for Family Wealth Transfers at Death: Analysis with Forms.

Taxpayers are expected to receive a modest amount of tax relief in 2015, thanks to the annual inflation adjustments provided under the Tax Code.

Last year marked the third consecutive year of increases in CPA firm revenue since the recession, with firms posting a 6.7 percent revenue increase, up from 5.4 percent in the previous year, according to the latest results from the Rosenberg Survey.

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., has introduced a bill that would help low-income married couples deduct twice as much of the interest charged on their student loan debts.

The Internal Revenue Service is being urged to improve its efficiency in auditing the growing number of large partnerships, in a new government report.

The chairman of the House Small Business Committee, Sam Graves, R-Mo., has introduced legislation to streamline and simplify the loan application process at the Small Business Administration by requiring the agency to permit the use of electronic signatures and electronic records.

Bloomberg BNA has given tax practitioners and taxpayers a head start on their 2015 tax year planning, releasing a detailed projection of inflation-adjusted tax items for next year on Wednesday.

A Deloitte official defended the firm’s mandatory retirement requirements for partners in a congressional hearing Wednesday.

Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., has introduced legislation that would amend the Tax Code to disqualify movie and TV producers from receiving tax credits from the federal government if any of the production is done outside the United States.

WalletHub, a personal finance social network, has released an analysis of the rates at which S&P 100 companies are taxed at the state, federal and international levels and found they were on average paying more in taxes last year than in 2012, although some are still paying extremely low rates.

The House passed three pieces of legislation Wednesday aimed at limiting the authority of the Internal Revenue Service in response to scandals involving the extra scrutiny given to political groups applying for tax-exempt status as social welfare organizations.

The Private Company Council, the standard-setter for privately held companies, voted Tuesday to finalize an alternative that would exempt private companies from separately recognizing and measuring non-competition agreements and customer-related intangible assets that are not capable of being sold or licensed independently in a business combination.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has released a new report on how internal auditors can take advantage of metrics to get better results.

The American Institute of CPAs has reorganized some of the content of its auditing and attestation standards.