Michael Cohn

Paul Beswick, who has served as chief accountant in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of the Chief Accountant, plans to leave the agency to return to the private sector.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board has released for public comment proposed changes to the International Standards on Auditing to clarify the expectations of auditors when auditing financial statement disclosures.

The Center for Audit Quality and the Institute for Corporate Responsibility at the George Washington University School of Business are teaming on a new initiative on rethinking financial disclosures in response to recent comments from Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Jo White to streamline the existing Form 10-K disclosure requirements.

Small and midsize businesses in the U.S. benefit from government and private sector initiatives that support them from the start-up stage through enterprise development stages and beyond, according to a new report from the Association of Chartered and Certified Accountants and Delta Economics.

The Internal Revenue Service has published final regulations to provide guidance on which costs incurred by estates or trusts other than grantor trusts are subject to a 2 percent floor for miscellaneous itemized deductions.

Adaptive Professional Solutions has debuted an online marketplace for temporary accounting and finance staffing.

The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its Small Business Optimism Index rose 1.8 points in April to a post-recession high of 95.2, crossing the 95 marker for the first time since 2007.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued final regulations clarifying the rules regarding the tax treatment of payments by qualified retirement plans for accident or health insurance.

A majority of accounting and finance executives in the U.S. and Canada are anticipating that their companies’ compliance burden will increase in the years ahead, though less than half expect the cost of compliance to grow.

The quantity of financial restatements from public companies has leveled off in the past four years and the severity of those restatements has remained low, according to a new report from the research firm Audit Analytics, but restatements have increased from accelerated filers for the third straight year.

Ninety percent of tax and finance executives of companies headquartered in the United States anticipate already heightened tax risks to accelerate in the next two years, compared to executives with 81 percent of companies globally who anticipate increased risk, according to a new survey by Ernst & Young.

The Internal Revenue Service allowed an estimated $13.3 billion to $15.6 billion to be paid in improper claims for the Earned Income Tax Credit last fiscal year, or about 22 to 26 percent of all EITC payments, according to a new government report, which found the IRS continuing to be noncompliant with a 2010 law that sought to limit improper payments.

The Internal Revenue Service has declined to file a petition with the Supreme Court to appeal a series of rulings invalidating its effort to require mandatory testing and continuing education of tax preparers.

The Indiana congressional delegation has sent a letter to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen asking for an investigation into reports that hundreds of Indiana doctors and health care professionals have been victimized by identity theft.

The three founders of the enterprise resource planning and accounting software company Lawson Software have agreed to pay $5.8 million to settle charges with the Securities and Exchange Company that they engaged in insider trading ahead of the sale of the company.

The Center for Audit Quality and the American Institute of CPAs have issued a member alert discussing regulatory changes for audits and attestation engagements of brokers and dealers and futures commission merchants, including entities that are dually registered.

A tax preparer in Rochester, N.Y., faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $853,766 after creating fictitious employers for clients and filing tax returns claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit on their behalf.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued a revenue procedure and notice to provide temporary penalty relief to plan administrators who don’t file their Form 5500 or 5500 EZ forms on time.

Congressmen Mark Pocan, D-Wis., and Scott Peters, D-Calif., along with 21 other House Democrats, have introduced legislation to lower all federal student loans to 4 percent and allow borrowers to refinance their student loans at a lower rate.

A pair of Democratic senators said they intend to close loopholes in the corporate inversion tax rules that encourage multinational corporations to move their headquarters outside the U.S. by acquiring a company overseas.