Michael Cohn

An Internal Revenue Service employee has been suspended for 100 days without pay for urging taxpayers to re-elect President Obama in 2012.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun sending letters to public companies that fail to file their financials with all the necessary data using Extensible Business Reporting Language technology.

The real estate investment trust Ventas has dismissed Ernst & Young as its auditor after E&Y determined that it lacked independence because of an “inappropriate personal relationship” between an E&Y partner and Ventas’s former chief accounting officer and controller.

The Internal Revenue Service is being urged to modernize the process of filing amended tax returns in a new government report that estimates the IRS could be losing billions of dollars from erroneous tax refunds claimed on amended tax returns.

Financial Executives International has elected a new slate of executive officers and members of the board of directors for the fiscal year, effective July 1.

The Institute of Management Accountants and the American Accounting Association’s Management Accounting Section have released a new framework intended to broaden the scope of accounting education.

The Institute of Internal Auditors has elected PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Anton van Wyk, a native of South Africa, as chairman of the IIA’s 2014-2015 Global Board of Directors.

Actor Sir Michael Caine, singers George Michael, Kate Melua and Gary Barlow, and four members of the Arctic Monkeys rock band are among those accused of participating in a massive tax shelter scheme in the United Kingdom.

Wholesale adoption in the U.S. of International Financial Reporting Standards seems unlikely to occur in the near future as the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board continue to move away from full convergence of their standards, according to a Fitch Ratings report.

The National Federation of Independent Business reported Tuesday a decline in optimism among small business owners in June after a promising three-month run.

Protiviti has released the 10th anniversary edition of its Internal Auditing around the World publication, examining the pressing issues, new challenges and evolution of internal audit that affect global companies.

The Institute of Internal Auditors has introduced a new Qualification in Internal Audit Leadership program to identify and nurture the internal audit profession’s next generation of leaders.

The Association for Accounting Marketing has announced its board of directors and president for the term beginning July 1.

The Georgia Society of CPAs has elected Terry Parker to serve as the 2014-2015 chair of the GSCPA, and Lowell Mooney to serve as chair-elect, leading a membership of nearly 14,000 CPAs across the state of Georgia.

Better management of correspondence audits by the Internal Revenue Service could improve tax compliance and reduce the burden on taxpayers, according to a new government report.

The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance said it has helped 42,415 taxpayers who called its Taxpayer Information Center with language assistance in 79 different languages.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board announced a settled disciplinary order Monday against Randall A. Stone, CPA, of Austin, Texas, a former PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP partner, for violating PCAOB rules and standards in PwC's 2007 audit of the medical device company ArthroCare Corporation.

The Internal Revenue Service plans to put in place new procedures starting next January to limit the number of refunds electronically deposited into a single financial account or pre-paid debit card to three, as part of an effort to combat fraud and identity theft, including fraud committed by unscrupulous tax preparers.

U.S. small business employment grew for the fourth consecutive month in June, adding 20,000 jobs, according to Intuit.

The Internal Revenue Service’s Taxpayer Advocate Service could improve its processing of so-called “systemic burden” cases that involve instances in which an IRS process, system or procedure has not operated as intended, according to a new report.