Michael Cohn

Regions Bank plans to pay $51 million to resolve charges related to the intentional misclassification of loans and accounting fraud.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board are taking different approaches to setting standards for rate-regulated utilities, and a FASB board member sees little prospect for an agreement.

The House Ways and Means Committee has approved legislation aimed at simplifying the many tax credits available for education.

The nonprofit Sustainability Accounting Standards Board has released provisional sustainability standards for industries in the nonrenewable resources sector, such as oil, gas and mining.

Cloud accounting and payroll technology provider AccountantsWorld has signed a strategic partnership with HBK CPAs & Consultants, a Top 100 accounting and wealth management services firm based in Youngstown, Ohio.

Peter Konigsberg, an accountant and lawyer who provided services to numerous clients of Bernard Madoff’s investment firm, and who was a personal tax and business adviser to Madoff, pleaded guilty Tuesday in a Manhattan federal court to various charges and faces up to 30 years in prison.

The Internal Revenue Service has posted an updated Foreign Financial Institution Agreement on its Web site for implementing the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA.

The American Institute of CPAs has sent a letter expressing strong concern with the Internal Revenue Service’s proposed voluntary certification program for tax return preparers, saying it “would cause significant legal problems that may ultimately frustrate the IRS’s goals, confuse the public, and lead to litigation.”

The Senate Finance Committee held a hearing Tuesday to examine ways to improve tax credits for education and lower student debt as part of the latest series of hearings on tax reform.

Boyd Falls, the former managing partner of Austin & Falls CPAs in Charlotte, N.C., has died.

The IRS Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee presented its 2014 Annual Report to Congress during a public meeting Tuesday, with recommendations including the creation of an online IRS account for individual and business taxpayers and tax professionals.

The role of the finance team is expanding beyond traditional accounting and financial reporting function to include areas such as information technology development, cyber security and strategic business planning, according to a new survey by the American Institute of CPAs.

Technology and consumer electronics vendors showed off some of their latest wares at last week’s Digital Experience mini trade show in New York.

The new chairman of the California Society of CPAs and the new president of the CalCPA Education Foundation plan to focus on strategic priorities.

The International Accounting Standards Board announced its intention Monday to create a transition resource group that will focus on the upcoming new requirements for impairment of financial instruments under International Financial Reporting Standards.

Bloomberg BNA has released FATCA — Information Reporting and Withholding Under Chapter 4, a new report portfolio in which international tax practitioners from PricewaterhouseCoopers analyze the reporting and withholding requirements imposed by the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act on both financial and non-financial institutions.

U.S. businesses have been growing their sales and expanding their profit margins at a healthy and consistent pace over the past year, according to the latest quarterly analysis of private-company financial statements by Sageworks,

The New York State Society of CPAs has elected Joseph M. Falbo Jr. of Grand Island, N.Y., as president-elect.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued a new accounting standards update for stock compensation.

The Indiana CPA Society has established a CPA Center of Excellence to better prepare CPAs for the challenges of the future.